The Crucible
It’s such a preposterous pretense. That women
in New England in the late 1600’s were witches, that they pried
open the souls of others so that the devil could enter. THE CRUCIBLE
is such a weighty play and its subject, the death penalty served on
these women, brings us to the realm of incalculable fraud.
It is as preposterous to us today as September
11th and its aftermath will be to our forebears. Who will
believe that a handful of men attacked and murdered thousands in New
York City one morning in order to meet 72 virgins in heaven. Or that
politicians who sought vengeance on this deed defended their acts
using the words "good" and "evil".
In Richard Eyre’s prodigious production of
Arthur Miller’s classic drama we see the mirror of our growing
orthodoxy. Behind the curtain we see a pyramid. Its walls open; perhaps
it’s a catacomb or a crucible where intense fires burn. But when
Liam Neeson enters from working in the field, pouring in sweat, we
know this is the home of John Proctor.
Neeson delivers a heroic performance as the honorable
man who reveals the pretense behind this witch-hunt. Written in the
1950’s, the play gets its oxygen of course from the House Un-American
Activities Committee of Joseph McCarthy. As such, Brian Murray is
all too convincing as his Excellency, the judge. It’s his declaration
that "we live no longer in the dusty afternoon when evil can
be mixed with good".
This is a powerful production of a very poetic
play about living in the grips of a repressive society. Or any society
in which it is too difficult to stand up and speak against the prevailing
view. As Mr. Eyre clearly defines it, the world of THE CRUCIBLE is
a theocratic state.
That’s This Week on Broadway. I’m Isa
Goldberg.
