This was a very interesting, powerful episode--a story that, even though it's ostensibly about "Amphoran" and how it might just turn everyone in town into "raving, bloody-thirsty killers," is really about people's unwillingness to hear inconvenient (and unprofitable) truths, and the lengths they'll go to in order to hide from those truths. The comparisons to situations today are pretty much inescapable. Think of any number of current politicians today on the environment, for instance, on global warming....

I did feel that Sam Dann made a mistake in the third act by keeping open the question of whether Amphoran is actually dangerous. This, for me, undercuts the theme of the play, and leads to a somewhat frustrating and inconclusive ending. The focus here should be on the conflict between the townspeople, not on Amphoran itself, which is kind of a silly story device anyway.

My wife and I listened to this episode together, and at the same moment (near the end of Act 1), we both said: " 'An Enemy of the People'!" The credits in the show nowhere acknowledge this, but "Miracle in Sharon City" is an adaptation, or revision, or reimagining of Henrik Ibsen's classic play "An Enemy of the People" (1883). In the Ibsen original, the controversy surrounds information that the town doctor, Thomas Stockmann, has received about the "Baths," the local natural springs which the mayor and town council wish to open to the public as an expensive health resort. The only problem, as Stockmann learns, is that the waters there are dangerously polluted, and will likely cause illness and even death for those who bathe in them. Dann works his story out somewhat differently, but the assembled properties of Ibsen's play are all there: the physician (or pharmacist, anyway) main character standing against the town, the town meeting, the lab report, the brick being thrown through the hero's window. So this play is really Ibsen, RMT-style! Which is not a criticism; I thoroughly enjoyed "Miracle in Sharon City."

If anyone's interested, by the way, "An Enemy of the People" has been filmed a couple of times, once with Steve McQueen as Stockmann. (A terrific movie, but probably McQueen's least-known--it's not even on video, as far as I can tell. But TCM, the cable movie channel, has run it a couple of times in recent years. It's well worth checking out.)

Great choice!