In Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” a dedicated physician discovers that his town’s healthful mineral baths, its big tourist draw, are dangerously polluted. The town doesn’t want to hear about it.

If it hadn’t been written in 1882, you might suspect the play was an allegory about today’s science deniers, those people who won’t acknowledge the perils of climate change, proclaiming disingenuously: “We’re not scientists, we can’t judge.”

That’s precisely what somebody says in “An Enemy of the People.” And they do judge. And what the dedicated physician learns is that the truth, which is supposed to set you free, will do nothing of the sort if it’s bad for business.

The production at the Hilberry Theatre is Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Ibsen’s play. You’re forgiven if you assumed (as I did) that Miller wrote his update in the present century, in his final years; in fact, it premiered in 1950. There’s a temptation to call it “An Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen as told to Arthur Miller,” but Ibsen couldn’t have told Miller anything: he died in 1906, Miller was born in 1915.

But Ibsen certainly speaks to Miller, and both of them speak to today. It has points to make, but “An Enemy of the People” remains a human drama as well.

At first, Dr. Thomas Stockmann thinks the townsfolk will hail him as a hero for his discovery that could save many lives. But the whole town, with one or two exceptions, turns against him, led by his brother, the mayor. Even the local newspaper, self-proclaimed champion of free speech, refuses to publish the doctor’s findings.

As the good doctor, Brandy Joe Plambeck initially swells with pride at his civic-minded actions, and never literally bows under the weight of subsequent adversity.

Mary Sanson brings conviction, without overplaying it, to the role of Petra, Stockmann’s adult daughter and most stalwart supporter, while Tiffany Michelle Thompson, as Stockmann’s wife, Catherine, conveys palpable reluctance to take on the establishment at such a cost to her family.

Blair Anderson’s staging is straightforward, without knowing sly winks to contemporary politics; the audience is free to supply them. As far as Anderson and company are concerned, it’s Norway in the 1880s. Michael Sabourin’s sets – Stockmann’s house, the newspaper office, the warehouse where Stockmann invites the public to hear him – are things of timber, splashes of decorative stenciling, and at the newspaper, floor-to-ceiling sheets of newsprint.

John Woodland’s costumes bespeak a bygone century and distant place, and Mario Raymond’s lighting is unobtrusive, which is good. One shortcoming: while characters repeatedly reference the crowd waiting to get into the meeting place, there is dead silence outside.

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