Witch panics are usually associated in the public mind with the medieval world, although the truth is they flourished after it, during the rapid social transformation of the early modern period. The reflexive attempt to distance ourselves from an ugly chapter in history is something The Crucible attacks directly.
The people of 17th-century Salem still have much to say to us. For Arthur Miller, the witches were Communists; for us, terrorists. But the scapegoating process can erupt into a destructive orgy of state-sanctioned violence in any time.
When Governor Danforth, presiding over the play's witch trials, says that everyone is either with his court or against it, his words reverberate into powerful mouths from our own century.
This MTC production is a rare bird in an age of weird and wonderful adaptations, and it's great to see an utterly traditional version of a modern classic, performed in period dress, no frills.
Sam Strong's direction concentrates on the words, the ensemble acting. The delivery is convulsive, lines hurled over one another, curtains falling with crushing speed at the end of each act as if the stage itself can't bear to make you witness more.
The performances generate a febrile, intense sense of anxiety; the verbal aspect of performance is, for the most part, handled as expertly as oratorio or an upper-level radio play (although the use of Australian accents can occasionally, especially with the girl characters, make them sound a bit like they're in a school production).
The visual side isn't nearly as capable: the etiolated set doesn't give you much to look at, and Paul Jackson's lighting only comes into its own towards the end, in the grim rising of a fatal dawn. The painterly tableaux formed by the ensemble in the opening half are too recessed, too intimate, for a large theatre like the Sumner – although to be fair, the stage picture expands, along with the movement, into something grander after interval.
David Wenham's John Proctor is the big drawcard and he delivers – earthy and taciturn and tormented by guilt, he strides across the part, particularly memorable in scenes opposite Anita Hegh, who gives an aching, statuesque performance as his wife, flensed of emotional flexibility by suspicion and painful devotion.
Brian Lipson as Danforth gives perhaps the most powerful performance of his career. It's thrilling to see him command the stage in the voice of rigid authority; the production lifts the moment he appears, and doesn't let up. Julia Blake, too, creates a dominant, saintly presence as Rebecca Nurse – the effectiveness of her slightly Irish accent giving some sense of what might have been achieved if every actor in the cast had been able to effortlessly master it.
Grant Cartwright impresses as the zealous young Hale – the sensitive reverend, steeped in demonology, who changes his mind about the trials as the horror unfolds, while there's a spectrality to Elizabeth Nabben's Abigail, the trapped and calculating teenager who initiates the chaos.
Other supporting roles are seamlessly woven in. No actor in the large ensemble seems out of their depth, or obviously miscast – and that's a bit of a supernatural event in itself.
There are problems with this production, and it would pay to sit as close as you can, but this production of The Crucible moved me. Those with a taste for experimental or predominantly visual theatre will, I suspect, find it unsatisfying; those who want to experience a fine-grained, sensitive and faithful interpretation of Arthur Miller's masterpiece performed by a talented ensemble – look no further.
From here.
About the production
