The Crucible: A Crying-Out

When he criticized Senator Joseph McCarthy in March 1954, Edward R. Murrow famously declared "We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men."

Except, as playwright Arthur Miller had demonstrated with his controversial play The Crucible a year earlier, we most certainly were, and are. By comparing the metaphorical witch hunt of the House Un-American Activities Committee with the literal witch hunt of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, Miller reminded theatergoers of a bitter truth: those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

Fifty-five years later, we are still forgetting and repeating. Instead of the theocracy of Massachusetts or the "Loyalty Reviews" of the second Red Scare, we have the Patriot Act and surveillance laws. In a year in which America will choose its next leader, it seems especially appropriate to remind theatergoers of what can happen when leaders become overly self-righteous, and when people walk in fear of one another.

And happily, the current revival of the play at the Arclight Theatre is a solid one, and conveys Miller's message well. Director Pamela Moller Kareman keeps her cast onstage throughout the performance, dividing them by sex on opposite walls. In between the men and the women, the story of fear, greed, hatred and misogyny plays out as the community watches in stony silence. It is a wonderful bit of staging that speaks silent volumes.

Sadly, the device seems to be Kareman's strongest suit, as much of the rest of the production is somewhat lacking in intensity. While the play gets stronger as it goes along, it is not until well into the second act that true emotion starts to build up. There is no tension, no sense of danger, no heart-felt hysteria until the dramatic courtroom scene in which many of the secrets are revealed. The cast, while game, frequently seems to struggle with Miller's Colonial dialogue, which at least serves to emphasize the characters' awkwardness among themselves.

As John Proctor, a Puritan in need of purification, Simon MacLean rarely captures the grief and guilt of his tormented character, keeping the complex emotions strictly superficial. Much like John Proctor's growth and redemption, MacLean finally finds the emotional core of his character by the end of the evening, but it is too little, too late. As Abigail Williams, the headstrong teenager who will destroy anyone to have him, Sherry Stregack aptly captures the calculated sham that is the role, but never lets us see below Abby's surface into the twisted depths of the girl's mind. Likewise, the words of a proto-"Mean Girl" sound even more false coming from a clearly older woman. The role is a gem for any actress, but Ms. Stregack might have done better as Elizabeth Proctor. In that role, Sarah Bennett is appropriately quiet and cold, and nicely presents a woman trapped in innumerable ways by a life she cannot change. John Tyrrell provides first some comic relief and then some pure pathos as the curmudgeonly Giles Corey, whose offhand remark could cost dozens of his friends their lives. As the menacing Deputy-Governor Danforth, David Licht evokes Patrick Stewart in all the best ways, effortlessly commanding the stage with a whisper while his co-stars (often) shout in vain. Kevin Albert, in a nicely understated performance, makes Reverend John Hale as much a central figure as John Proctor. Whereas Proctor's journey is one of redemption, Hale's is the opposite, as he becomes mired in a mess of his own making. Albert makes Hale's emotional destruction gently sympathetic, and reminds us of where that road paved with good intentions leads.

John Pollard's scenic design is simple and lovely: wooden beams form a sad skeleton of a room, and thin floorboards reverberate every footstep like drums. Before the play even begins, we can see the starkness of the Puritan world, and the hollow framework of the house is symbolic in many ways. David Pentz's lighting compliments the set nicely, and evokes emotion as well as location. Kimberly Matela's costumes seem surprisingly bright for the stark Puritans, but at least they add some color to the otherwise morose stage.

With such a large cast and running time, The Crucible is a challenge for any theatre company to produce, and The Schoolhouse Theatre deserves praise for taking on this task. If the production isn't groundbreaking, it is still solid and interesting, and a good reminder of what we must never forget, no matter how much we want to. History does repeat itself, and the only way to know the future is to look to the past.

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