A Review of The Crucible

Photo by Rowan Dunfey

 By Anne Thompson

The Crucible was not an enjoyable play to watch. It was beautifully poignant, artfully acted, and incredibly profound. But enjoyable? Never. It was one of the darkest, grimmest, most unpleasant plays I have ever seen. Achingly visceral, it leaves the audience with something of a bitter taste, raising the kinds of questions and desires that are never comfortable to explore. The play’s emotional intensity was raging and raw, properly conveying the ongoing battle of vice and virtue throughout the play. After all, The Crucible is, first and foremost, a tragedy. Pulling off as convincing a performance as this cast has is no small feat.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucibleis more than just a timeless classic. It was written in 1953, a time of rampant McCarthyism. The playwright himself numbers among those accused of holding communist sympathies. The fear and scapegoating that permeated that dark epoch is symbolized by this story of a similar situation: the Salem witch trials of the 1690s.

The plot centers around the inhabitants of the small Puritan town of Salem. John Proctor (Connor O’Leary), a once-stable farmer and husband. As rumors of witchcraft consume the village, he tries desperately to do the honorable thing, but his past is irrevocably soiled by his adulterous affair with Abigail

Williams (Kelly Gaudet), the manipulative, seventeen-year-old villain. It was she who convinced her uncle’s black Barbadian slave, Tituba (Rachel Margolis), to teach her and her friends voodoo, marking the beginning of her interest in “devil-worship.”

Photo By Rowan Dunfey

As a young, orphaned, unmarried girl, her accusations of devil worship are the only possible way for her to gain power in a religious, male-dominated society. She is motivated chiefly by her desire to have John Proctor as her husband by doing away with his respectable wife, Elizabeth Proctor (Kendra Comstock).

Reverend Hale (Cas Stone) is the witch hunter; practical and intellectual, he eventually realizes that Proctor and Mary Warren (Olivia Zerphy) are actually telling the truth, and that the witch trials are a sham. His disillusionment renders him a defeated man, and he lacks the intrinsic honor necessary to make him truly heroic.

The play draws to a close as John Proctor, the classic tragic hero, is torn between saving his own life and saving his name. It is, dialogue alone, a truly moving scene, and the entire cast was very impressive. Their command and interpretation of the dialogue, both verbally and emotionally, created a very believable and engaging performance.

As always, the crew must be applauded just as heartily as the cast. Though quieter and subtler, their work is equally important to the resounding success of the play. The lighting was simple yet dramatic, the perfect backdrop for a Puritan tragedy. The costumes were also notably fitting. The chaste, dark tones, accented with white collars, were decidedly Puritan. Yet it was the details—like Abigail’s red bow and Tituba’s headscarf—that helped give the right individuals just enough flare to accentuate their personalities.

Perhaps the most beautiful scene of all was the opening one. The hushed chanting of Abigail Williams and her circle of cohorts, silhouetted against an ominous scarlet backdrop, opened the play perfectly. It set the haunting tone of the sinister undercurrent that was present throughout the story.

The Crucible is unforgettable because of its underlying negativity. The plot is painfully yet absorbingly governed by intolerance, female subordination (and the uprising against this), and the corrupt nature of the judicial system. The collective result is social catastrophe.

It is comforting to assert that in the days of the Salem witch trials and the communist-crazed fifties, evil was a far more tangible thing. Modern society seems to pride itself on thinking it has sterilized and psychoanalyzed such irrational fears into blasé oblivion. Unfortunately, this is far from true. The underlying theme of a community in a frenzy remains incredibly relevant to modern life. After all, 9/11 was not so very long ago. From terrorism to political corruption, “evil” is abounding. Moreover, as so well depicted in The Crucible, there’s nothing like chaos to smear the lines of good and evil into a gray fear. Perhaps the most important message to take from the play is an understanding of the danger of letting mass hysteria overrun society, for it will inevitably spiral into a paranoid, finger-pointing chaos.