Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play about the Salem witch trials of the late 1600’s, as a sort of allegory about the McCarthy hearings. Miller himself had been subpoenaed, testified and was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to identify other people at meetings he attended.
Seeing it in the current production by Stray Dog Theatre in the stage of American political thought we’re enduring now, one cannot help but look for parallels, of course. One can, and I’m sure many people have, argued that things were different then. Still, human behavior does repeat itself..
This, of course, was more than eighty years before the American Revolution when Massachusetts Bay Colony was still a part of England,, so English common law was in force. And when the daughter of the widowed Reverend Samuel Parris (Ben Ritchie) lies unresponsive after being found with her friends by her father dancing – oh, the horror of it – her father, and the rest of the small town, wonder if witchcraft was being practiced. The ripples, yea, waves from this extend widely, as evidenced by the size of the cast, 21 people, perhaps the largest SDT has ever used.
Not only is it a large cast, it’s a long show by the standards of today, four acts running over three hours. The plot is relatively complex when trying to explain what happens, other than this is the reason the phrase “witch hunt” has entered the American vocabulary, and who the characters are. Nevertheless, it’s clear that John Proctor (Graham Emmons), a local farmer, and his wife Elizabeth (Cynthia Pohlson), will be pivotal. Reverend Mr. Parris’ orphaned niece Abigail (Alison Linderer), who’d been hired as a maid by the Proctors, and then fired because she and John Proctor had become sexually involved, was one of the girls found dancing, and, we discover, was trying to evoke a curse on Mrs. Proctor, so she could marry him. Arrests begin on charges of witchcraft and the number mushrooms almost overnight as the hysteria spreads. There are trials. The penalty for being found guilty is death; if a defendant pleads guilty of being a witch, then there’s jail time and a ruined life – in this deeply, vigorously religious colony of Puritans.
It’s a carefully assembled cast, but some folks stand out, Ritchie, for instance, is so smug and pious it’s hard not to rush onstage and smack him. Emmons hits a good balance between being strong-willed on many things and deeply contrite toward his wife; opposite him, Pohlson is as stalwart as we imagine a loving-but-Puritan wife to be. Linderer’s Abigail tries hard to be seductive, but she’s really pretty bland, not surprising in that context.
Abraham Shaw gives a substantial Reverend John Hale, the visiting witchcraft authority from Andover, whose character evolves through the process. The redoubtable Rebecca Nurse, called Goody Nurse, using a title common in the era, short for “good wife”, is a fine, strong performance from Suzanne Greenwald. Deputy-Governor Danforth, who is presiding over the trials, comes courtesy of Joe Hanrahan, sometimes snarling, sometimes soothing, always satisfying.
Beyond considering any parallels to modern society, it also brings to mind stories of some Middle Eastern courts. It’s what happens when church and state are intertwined and how dangerous that is.
Especially for those who haven’t seen this classic of American theatre, it’s worth the commitment of time.
The Crucible
through February 23
Stray Dog Theatre
2336 Tennessee Ave.
314-865-1995
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