Eight Democrats in the Senate vote to end the shutdown. I was only half listening last night when they had a press conference and stated what they got, and what they did not get, as a result of their agreement and this morning I am still not sure. I am also not sure what the next steps are, but we will learn a lot more over the course of the week. I was disappointed to see some Democrats who disagreed with the eight who voted to end the shutdown attack them in fairly harsh terms. I hope that does not continue.

At some point, the shutdown was going to end, and we know it was not going to end with a complete Democratic victory, and in the not too distant future, the voters would stop blaming the Republicans and blame both parties, as suffering would continue among many different constituencies. If ending the shutdown brings back full SNAP payments, back pay for all federal workers, and full airline scheduling, that’s all to the good. If it postpones the debate about health care subsidies, that is okay, because if the debate can occur without a shutdown looming (can it?), the Democrats can certainly come out the good guys.

(What else has happened? Let’s see. Rudy Giuliani has been pardoned. Trump has become a Fox News sportscaster. There is talk about Trump wanting the Commanders to name their new stadium after him. There was some mention of Trump’s name being etched in the marble at a prominent location in the Kennedy Center. There is talk about the US minting a new coin, a coin with two heads, with Trump on both sides.)

Although we missed seeing Damn Yankees Saturday at the Arena, we did see Enemy of the People at Theater J yesterday. I first read Ibsen’s play decades ago; it stayed in my mind, because it seemed so true and so timeless. In a Norwegian village in the late-19th century, a doctor (who happens to be the brother of the mayor) is the medical director of a new municipal spa, meant to provide healing waters and to be the mainstay of the town’s economic future. But the doctor, a hero for his work on the spa, discovers that the water is contaminated and dangerous, as the mayor and others had decided to put the waterworks below the tanneries rather than above the tanneries, and he then concluded that everything had to be put on hold until the piping could all be relocated. That process would cost hundreds of thousands of crowns (apparently a lot of taxpayer money) and take two or three years.

The mayor/brother is aghast at this possibility and wants to downplay or ignore any dangers. The progressive journalists at the newspaper are 100% in favor of making sure the waters are safe before opening up the baths, until they realize the financial cost of redoing the plumbing, and the economic costs in generally of having the opening of the spa being delayed, and until they realize that they and their families will be affected by such moves. Then they all turn against the doctor and he becomes an “enemy of the people”.

It’s a very well constructed play. It’s a serious play. It’s a timeless play. And it’s a play that I have seen before. But I have never seen it in the fashion it is being performed at Theater J, where it has become somewhat otherworldly, stereotyped, stylized, in an adaptation by Amy Herzog that was seen last year in New York. Should you see it (the run has a few more weeks to go)? I think so, but I must say that, after the first act, I was ready to pan the production. In the second act, when the doctor has been given a hall to read his report on the water to the crowd, chaos breaks out in the best of theatrical ways and I thought the production was saved and for that scene alone, worth seeing.

Herzog makes many changes to Ibsen’s script, while keeping the plot pretty much the same. I would say this production is 60 percent Ibsen, and 40 percent Herzog. I wouldn’t say that I think that Herzog has improved the play; perhaps, quite the contrary. But her production keeps the main issue of the play alive: you are in a position of influence, you know something that should be altered because of a looming danger, but you learn that making the alteration will just bring about a different danger, so what do you do? How do you solve the dilemma? How do you avoid conflict? How do you assure transparency and no misinformation? Happens all the time.

For example, allowing health care subsidies to be terminated. You for sure don’t want to allow that to happen, so you oppose it the only way you see that is possible. You withhold your support and that leads to a governmental shutdown. But eventually the dangers posed by the shutdown seem at least as onerous as the dangers posed by the termination of the subsidies. At what time do you stop being a potential savior of the citizens’ health care, and turn out to be an enemy of the people?

Oh, yes, in the play there is the inevitable colloquy: I think we should pack up and move to America; this would never happen there. But, gee…

And one more thing, a sorta digression. Several decades ago, I had a meal in a Chinese restaurant and opened my fortune cookie to the strangest “fortune” I had ever seen. It said: “Never wear your best pants when fighting for your freedom”. Life went on and years later, I saw a (more traditional) production of Enemy of the People, and almost jumped out of my seat when I heard the doctor, in the last act of the play, point out that his trousers were torn, and exclaim: I guess you should never wear your best pants when fighting for your freedom!

I have no idea why Ibsen threw this line, seemingly out of rhythm with the rest of the dialogue, into the play. I am sure someone knows. I don’t think there is anything about Ibsen that someone doesn’t know. If you are that someone……