The Strawberry Theatre Workshop continues its third season of confrontational works at Richard Hugo House with An Enemy of the People, opening January 18 for a limited run. Director Greg Carter takes the innovative turn of casting acclaimed local actor Amy Fleetwood in the lead role of Doctor Stockmann, a part constructed by both of the play's authors to be performed by a man.

The gender choice has multiple justifications and multiple ramifications. "Amy was the best actor for the part," says Carter who met Fleetwood when they both worked on one of Book-It Theatre's first incarnations of Owen Meany's Christmas Pageant. More importantly, however, the choice supports the text: "Stockmann's community turns on him, and it's important that an audience understand that the people have an underlying distrust of the Doctor from the very beginning. Otherwise it is a drama about how fickle a community can be, which is less interesting and less important." The text provides a back-story that explains this distrust [Stockmann dedicated years away from his hometown in a kind of Peace Corps-like mission], but in performance, says Carter, "I've never seen that aspect of the story come across effectively."

At Strawshop, the 21st-century audience will meet a pioneering professional woman in an era (1900) before female physicians were commonplace. "When women first succeeded in traditionally male professions, there may have been acceptance of their accomplishment," says Carter. "But when important decisions had to be made, it was routine to disregard the women and rely on the men as the voices of power. In some communities--the U.S. Senate, to name one--that has never really changed."

Remarkably, the swap in the lead character's gender requires little further adjustment--no more than changing pronouns and swapping the names of the Doctor (Thomas) and his wife (Katherine). Says Carter, "The dismissive relationship between Stockmann and her brother, the Mayor, was already there. We really think we are just extending a device that the authors gave us. It's exactly the same story, only clearer."

The play owes its vitality to two of the greatest names in world literature. The original author was the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1882), known as the father of the modern drama for masterpieces like A Doll's House (1879) and Hedda Gabler (1890). Ibsen was the idol of the American master Arthur Miller, who took on the task of adapting An Enemy of the People for the New York stage in 1950, between his two most important original works, Death of a Salesman (1949) and The Crucible (1953).

For Strawshop, the work continues a commitment by the company to present some of the greatest progressive writers in history. With a name inspired by songwriter John Lennon, the theatre now adds Ibsen and Miller to a roster of writers speaking from their stage since 2004, including Charles Dickens, Dario Fo, Woody Guthrie, and Thornton Wilder. As usual, the loudest voices speaking to the current political situation are those artists who explained it all before:

"I believed this play could be alive for us because its central theme is, in my opinion, the central theme of our social life today," wrote Arthur Miller. "Simply, it is the question of whether the democratic guarantees protecting political minorities ought to be set aside in a time of crisis."

An Enemy of the People is directed by Greg Carter, who is the founding Artistic Director of Strawberry Theatre Workshop. He was the designer/director responsible for This Land: Woody Guthrie at Strawshop in 2004 and adapted world premieres of Fellow Passengers (from Charles Dickens) and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (from Thornton Wilder). Carter teaches at Cornish College of the Arts, and is the former technical director at Book-It Repertory Theatre. He appeared as a puppeteer this summer in Douglas Paasch's experimental Infinite Noir at Freehold and in The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

Strawshop continues to bring highly professional actors to the small theatre: Amy Fleetwood (Book-It, Lady Killers Productions) was a founding member of Theatre Under the Influence, where she appeared in Ashes to Ashes and Little Eyolf among others; Timothy Hyland (New City, Seattle Children's Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare) ended a six-month run in the two-man Stones in his Pockets at CHAC this summer and was recently featured at Strawshop in The Bridge of San Luis Rey; Jack Greenman (Insight Out Theatre, PCPA) played Prospero in The Tempest at Lake Sammamish this summer and just ended a run at Seattle Shakespeare as Polixenes in The Winter's Tale; Jeanette Maus has worked at The Empty Space (Stupid Kids), ConWorks (Anthony & Cleopatra) and Washington Ensemble Theatre (What Is Sexy?); and Troy Fischnaller, who also recently performed in The Winter's Tale, appeared in The Louis Slotin Sonata at The Empty Space as well as Honus & Me at Seattle Children's Theater.