Miller’s ‘Enemy’

Concerning “Arthur Miller’s ‘Enemy’ Has Found a Friend,” by Susan King, June 13:

Why don’t playwrights enjoy the same legal protections to prevent alterations to their works as other members of the artistic community who recently won that right?

A case in point is Arthur Miller, who has used Henrik Ibsen’s play, “Enemy of the People,” recently televised on PBS, as a format to express his own views. Miller’s first “adaptation” of the play was a polemic against Joseph McCarthy. His current “adaptation” is used as a vehicle to express his views on environmentalism.

Miller and others who make such “adaptations” should struggle through the creative process and formulate their own ideas instead of attaching themselves like lampreys to suck the guts out of other playwrights’ efforts.

It seems highly unfair that not a single brushstroke can be changed on a painting even though no longer in the possession of the artist who created it, while plays (and books as well) can be practically rewritten.

Current “statutes of limitations” on playwrights’ and writers’ work should be extended ad infinitum.

MIRIAM JAFFEE

Thousand Oaks