For a play about a whistleblower, the timing couldn't have been better. An Enemy of the People, adapted by Arthur Miller from Ibsen's script, is streaked with topical sympathies, sentiments, and fears. The connection between the central conflict and Enron-style whistle-blowing is obvious, but the echoes are subtler. Enemy stokes anxiety about the government's willingness to sacrifice truth in favor of fostering belief (WMDs, anyone?). The play inflames fear about democracy gone over to the lynch mobs (how do you really feel about Iraq's Shiite majority?). You could even make the case that the play takes a stance against tort reform and in favor of taxation for the social good (God bless those Scandinavians).

The action focuses on a scientist, Dr. Stockmann (Terry Edward Moore), who's discovered that the town's healing waters are being poisoned by runoff from a tannery. At first he trusts his revelation will turn him into a hero, but he hasn't considered its economic ramifications. The mineral waters are the central attraction for the town's new resort. Mayor Peter Stockmann (Marquam Krantz), Dr. Stockmann's brother, has pinned his hopes on the tourist money the spa will bring in, and soon the fickle tide of public opinion reverses course and pulls the doctor under.

Taproot's production is worthwhile but sometimes tiring. Director Scott Nolte tries to keep the clutter away from the play's crucial ideas, with only mild success. Mark Lund's set (a set can easily get out of control on Taproot's narrow thrust stage) is admirably restrained. The cast is decent enough--Terry Edward Moore makes a wonderfully goofy and affectionate crusader--but in several other instances, casting against type results in distracting performances. Marquam Krantz's beady eyes peer out behind round spectacles; he's a classical villain but he doesn't quite read as a savvy politician. Sarah Lamb, as Dr. Stockmann's idealistic daughter, always looks itchy under her demure dresses. It's awfully hard to look fierce when you act with your eyebrows.

The biggest problem is that the show isn't dynamic: Nolte hasn't found places to vary the play's righteous intensity. Miller and Ibsen pitch the conflict high from very early on, and the stakes are supposed to keep increasing as the action progresses. This staging starts loud and stays loud, which doesn't give the actors anywhere to go.

God Damn Tom
Theater Schmeater Through Feb 26.

The new Wayne Rawley play at Theater Schmeater is a gripping, hilarious rollercoaster of a play, set in the Snohomish County town of Marysville. Second-cousin to Rawley's white-trash parody serial Money & Run, God Damn Tom is populated by the kind of characters who might have been cut from a Money lineup for being too striking, too serious, or maybe just too real. The script is still a somewhat guilty pleasure--early in the first act, gimmicks like a man with short-term memory loss stick a little going down, but the rest of the show is satisfying, dramatic, and tense.

The divinely cursed subject of the title has been jailed for an unspecified act, and no one seems to know whether he did it. Some of Tom's close associates, including his wife Jillian (Alyssa Keene, who is excellent), might even prefer that the accusations were true. Others, like the gruff, passionate Corkie (Teri Lazzara, in a fantastic, scene-stealing performance) of the unlicensed junk shop Corkie's Collectibles, have their loyalties more or less straight, but are preoccupied by other things. By the end of the evening, five characters are skipping town and various affairs have been revealed, but there's a cozy ambivalence to every little drama that keeps them from being cheap or tawdry.

There are a scattering of missteps in MJ Sieber's direction--leaving a character on stage to look contemplative during the transitions between scenes might have sounded good, but it doesn't look good. In an uncomfortable seduction scene, eye contact is maybe sustained a beat too long, or with an implausible degree of earnestness. But these are minor quibbles. The rest of the production is funny, vital, and sharp. Take your money and run to God Damn Tom.