Taking a Chance on Adam
Chanzit
In Chanzit's new play, The
Great Divide (which just received its world premiere from
Shotgun Players), the action has been updated to modern times
and set in a small town in Colorado where the extraction of natural
gas is the town's main industry. As the playwright explains:
"When I heard the debates
raging over water contamination from hydraulic fracturing and
the EPA's inability to investigate, I couldn't help but think
of Ibsen. The situation is not identical to the one in An
Enemy of the People, but this is a contemporary arena full
of complex Ibsenian conflict. Currently, disputes between the
environment and the economy, and between long-term and short-term
thinking polarize the sides, dividing the community. In today's
world the Internet, while connecting us as a global community,
also has a way of reinforcing local divisions. It is perhaps easier
now to shut out the other side, keeping our circle to those who
think and talk like us, visiting websites and forums that confirm
our own positions."
There are other factors which weaken the impact of Ibsen's original
concept. Following major environmental disasters such as the 1989
Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska; BP's Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and the nuclear
meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011, the public
has become a lot more jaded about the ability of corporations
to police themselves and show genuine concern for the public good.
In 2000, when Julia Roberts
starred in Erin Brockovich (the story of how, by poisoning
the water in the town of Hinckley, California, Pacific Gas &
Electric caused many residents to develop cancer and other illnesses),
there was a sharp spike in public awareness of corporate malfeasance.
A series of hard-hitting documentary films soon followed. They
include:
•The Corporation,
a 2003 Canadian documentary which compared the behavior of major
corporations to that character traits of a pathological criminal
as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders.
•Flow: For Love of Water, a 2008 documentary about
the growing shortage of potable water.
•Crude a 2009 documentary about the class action
lawsuit brought against Chevron Corporation by the indigenous
tribes of Ecuador.
•Gasland, a 2010 documentary about the dangers
of fracking.
•On Coal River, a 2010 documentary about the toxic
side effects of mountaintop mining.
•Last Call at the Oasis, a 2011 documentary by
Jessica Yu about the growing water conservation crisis.
While all of these documentaries
have helped to lay out the problems being caused by man's reckless
approach to the environment -- and may do an excellent job of
educating the public about the growing crises we face -- films
don't necessarily produce the kind of gut reaction or intense
debate one can achieve through live theatre. As Mina Morita (who
directed The Great Divide) explains:
"We live in a nation
that is working through increasingly complex and polarizing times.
Nothing is simple. In a community like Berkeley, where everyone
brandishes their liberal perspective, how do we create a story
where taking a side is not so simple? We want to show the results
of a town torn apart by the single issue of water contamination.
We want to test all of this audience's defense mechanisms, so
it is not easy to judge who is right and wrong. The play asks:
What will a person sacrifice for what they believe is right? What
if they lose their family? What if they are left with nothing?
And what if the other side of the issue is equally valid? What
if, in their righteousness, both sides lose their ability to even
hear the perspective of the other side? What if the other side
has a face that one loves? What if a whole town is fractured because
of one issue that seems, on the surface, to have an easy solution?"
In The Great Divide,
Dr. Katherine Stockmann, a famous environmentalist, has just returned
home to her family in Colorado after years of activism in Latin
America and other hot spots around the world. While living on
the East Coast, she got spooked when, in retaliation for some
of her statements, strangers started to intimidate her child.
Looking to kick back and
enjoy some peace and quiet, she's hoping to reunite with her brother
Peter (Scott Phillips), their mother (Michaela Greeley), and ease
some of the strained relations with her husband, Tom (Edward McCloud).
Even though she is not practicing medicine, an old friend of the
family, Mrs. Lewis (Rebecca Pingree), seeks her out for medical
advice about symptoms that have been spreading throughout the
community. Katherine soon comes to realize that:
•The local doctor
is on the payroll of the natural gas company.
•The gas company funds any "research" done on
the side effects of fracking.
•Most people in town owe their livelihood to the gas company.
•The gas company has poured money into a new college for
the community.
•Although he may be the town's mayor, her brother is romantically
involved with Rita (Sarita Ocon), one of the gas company's publicists.
•Due to some carefully-crafted legalese, the EPA is unable
to investigate the situation.
•A local journalist hoping to make a name for himself (Ryan
Tasker) is dating her daughter Petra (Luisa Frasconi) while trying
to push Katherine to take action.
Act I concludes with a rumbling
explosion that literally shakes the theatre. In the second act,
Katherine's activism is met by some townspeople who can't afford
to lose their income, others who vilify her for trying to kill
the goose that's laid their golden egg and some who, fearing for
their physical and financial health, try to avoid Dr. Stockmann
entirely.
What few people expect is
that the natural gas company has been looking for a way to pack
up and leave a town that is becoming a financial liability. Unlike
Ibsen's tannery, a multinational corporation doesn't have to worry
about collateral damage to either the environment or its employees.
Using the infamous "invisible hand of the market" excuse,
it can pick up stakes and move its labor force to another location
on a whim. Those who can't afford to make the move can stay behind
and starve.
Once the gas company has
left town and taken its financial resources away, the residents
are left with no income, Peter is left with no mistress, and Katherine
finds herself being abandoned by her husband as well. The only
winner turns out her mother, who bought up a whole lot of land
at fire sale prices.
In some ways, The Great
Divide suffers a disadvantage of genre: it's much easier
to handle the expository needs of the story and educate an audience
using a documentary format than to rely on public hearings that
disintegrate into a rowdy confrontation.
While I admired Heather
Robison's impassioned portrayal of Dr. Stockmann as well as the
sound design by Colin Trevor and Martin Flynn's unit set, The
Great Divide suffered under the necessary burden of having
to deliver so much historical information without the kind of
dramatic fluidity one enjoys in film.
