When the objective facts of a court case run up against politically correct views, it can lead to problems on the stage.

This is what Phelim McAleer, an Irish-born playwright, filmmaker, and investigative journalist has discovered with his recent productions. This coming Saturday, May 19, McAleer’s latest play, titled “The $18-Billion Prize,” will open at the Phoenix Theater in San Francisco and run until June 3.

The play, which explores “the dark side of the environmental movement,” is already stirring controversy. Sources who are close to the actor have informed me that an actor who was playing the part of a New York City attorney named Steven Donziger stormed off the set after the second rehearsal.

Apparently, the actor had difficultly performing the part because it cast the environmental movement in a negative light, the sources say. But the facts attached to a lawsuit involving Chevron Corp. show that environmental activists colluded with Donziger to bribe a judge and ghostwrite a massive legal judgment against the company that initially totaled $18 billion.

McAleer has been making use of a storytelling technique known as “verbatim theater,” which draws from courtroom testimony as the basis for dialogue. He also used this technique in a play about the fatal police shooting of an 18-year-old black male in Ferguson, Mo., which lead to riots. He is using this technique again to help tell the story about the Chevron case and legal findings that show environmental activists colluded with trial lawyers to advance fraudulent claims. Nine of the 13 cast members of “Ferguson” play walked out on McAleer during rehearsals in Los Angeles.

Apparently, he has a special talent for getting a rise out of actors who celebrate diversity in theory but reject viewpoints rooted in hard evidence that challenge media narratives.

“The $18-Billion Prize reveals a dirty secret that many environmental lawsuits are frauds based on outrageous claims and sometimes outright lies and that the media are little more than stenographers for these liars,” McAleer said in an email. He also criticized “Hollywood elites” who give cover to false claims.

When trial lawyers team up with environmental groups to sully the reputations of energy companies, they typically draw favorable press coverage. That’s what happened in the initial stages of a lawsuit Donziger filed against Chevron Corp. on behalf of plaintiffs in Ecuador who claimed the company was responsible for environmental damage in the Amazon region.

But since the facts now demonstrate that Chevron was the victim of fraudulent allegations, the mainstream media has been running silent. In June 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal from Donziger leaving in place lower federal court rulings that say the New York attorney violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

In a previous post for Washington Examiner, I detailed Chevron’s RICO suit and the evidence of collusion between trial lawyers, environmental groups, and Ecuador’s judiciary. In its RICO complaint , Chevron claims “conspirators set about to manufacture false evidence” and to “intimidate and corrupt” Ecuador’s court system.

In February 2011, a court in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, issued an $18 billion judgment against Chevron that was later reduced to $9.5 billion. But because the Supreme Court declined to hear Donziger’s appeal, the ruling in Ecuador cannot be enforced.

The 500-page ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Donziger and his partners is worth reviewing for anyone unfamiliar with the case.

“The $18-Billion Prize reveals the dark side of the environmental movement, where campaigners such as Donziger go to remote locations and use locals as props in their ideological war against American corporations,” McAleer explains on the website for the play. “In one of the most outrageous examples, Donziger secretly fought and stopped the Ecuadorian government from cleaning up their pollution because it wouldn’t look good for his case. Donziger was also going to become very rich in the process. He stood to pocket $1.2 billion before the fraud was uncovered.”

I called and emailed both the actor who walked off the set and the director to see if either would care to comment on the play. But as of Tuesday morning, I had not received any response.

In a new development, McAleer has sent out an email message that says Twitter has been working to block messages that promote and spread news about the play. In prior messages, McAleer has also said he could not get any lighting designers or publicists to work with him.

Tickets for the play can be purchased at ChevronPlay.com.

“The scope of the fraud was enormous and at times farcical,” McAleer says on the play website. “Along with bribing judges, they used ludicrous code words to describe the top-secret payments. It was all revealed when a New York court, realizing that something was amiss, ordered Donziger to hand over his files.”

Sounds like a fun show!

Kevin Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C. who writes for several national publications.