The Crucible: EW stage review
7 / 10
For the sixth time on Broadway, it's the season of the witch. Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, his raw if hyperbolic reenactment of the deadly Salem Witch Trials, struck a nerve when it first premiered in 1953 as a scorching condemnation of the House Un-American Activities Committee, then in the process of uprooting communists via innuendo, scare-mongering, and intimidation. The play's easy-to-understand themes of mob mentality and mass hysteria have made it Miller's most produced work (especially in high schools and colleges), yet in all honesty, the piece is somewhat flat when considered outside the allegory for McCarthyism. As a theatrical experience in 2016, The Crucible needs freshening up.
