|
 onservatives
aren't supposed to like Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible.
It was first performed in 1953, and Miller made no secret of the
fact that his portrait of the Salem witch trials was nothing more
or less than an attack on American anti-Communism. Miller was not
the first to analogize the nation's pursuit of Soviet agents to
the Salem witch trials of the 17th century, but he was the first
to write a four-act play based on the analogy. And as The Crucible
was his follow-up to Death of a Salesman, the most distinguished
American play of its time, Miller had chosen to step into the fray
with the same argument advanced by the defenders of Alger Hiss and
the Rosenbergs — the argument being that there was no Soviet
threat, there were no Soviet spies, that the Cold War was an American
plot to enrich berserk capitalists fearful of socialist ideals.
The key thing
about the Salem witch-hunts, of course, was that there were no witches.
So if you follow the analogy, just as there were no witches in Salem
working to corrupt souls, there were no Communists in 1950s America
seeking to advance the interests of America's mortal enemy.
Arthur Miller's
politics and ideology were and are indefensible, not to mention
self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, and flat-out wrong. Miller is
85, and even now can be relied upon to assert the hoariest of left-wing
clichés — as he has done in interviews surrounding the
new
Broadway production of The Crucible, newly analogizing
his portrait of 17th-century hysteria to the mood in America following
September 11.
But 49 years
after The Crucible's premiere, it's possible to watch the
play without giving a single thought to the House Un-American Activities
Committee or Joseph McCarthy. And what you're watching is a sensational
piece of theater. (It was also made into a wonderful movie a few
years ago with Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder, which you should
rent.) It's a play as over-the-top hysterical in its way as the
Salem girls were, what with all the screaming and bellowing and
weeping and teeth-gnashing — all very effective and wonderful
to watch.
Caught out
having a pagan revel in the woods, four Salem girls say they had
the devil infused into them by townswomen, and so the witch-hunt
begins. Every character in the play was a figure in the real-life
Salem trials, but Miller has changed their stories around. Abigail
Williams, the 12-year-old girl at the forefront, is aged to 18,
old enough for her to engage knowingly in an affair with farmer
John Proctor. No such allegation was ever made, and no such affair
ever took place, but Miller's choice is a dramatic master stroke
— it gives Abigail motive and makes it nearly impossible for
Proctor to tell the truth about her without shaming himself and
his wife.
Proctor is
played by Liam Neeson, best known for playing the title role in
Schindler's List, but whose true greatness comes when he
treads upon the boards. Neeson may be the most commanding stage actor
of our time — and certainly here, towering above the rest of
the cast as his character struggles with as broad a range of emotions
as any in the American theater, he is nothing short of titanic.
His wife Elizabeth is played by Laura Linney, nominated for an Oscar
last year for her wondrous work in You Can Count on Me. A
good if cold stage actress, Linney is totally overshadowed by Neeson,
as is most of the rest of the cast. Only the veteran Brian Murray,
as the chief judge in the proceedings, can hold your attention when
Neeson is also on the stage.
In the 1950s,
plays with historical settings were not uncommon. Nor were plays
with 22 speaking parts. The Crucible was very much a work
of its time in both respects. But in 2002, most Broadway shows take
place in a Manhattan apartment and you're lucky if there are two
actors there boring you to death. It's beyond exciting for a regular
theatergoer to see a stage crowded with people, because it gives
you so much more to look at and consider. The economics of Broadway
demand modest plays with modest-sized casts, and that very modesty
helps explain why the theater no longer seems relevant or all that
much fun.
The contemporary
Broadway play tends to be quiet and thoughtful, like a good made-for-TV
movie. But we want screaming. We want yelling. We want tears, and
hugs, and confrontations. Theater was the original spectacle, and
it did its work by giving ordinary people a chance to watch others
make a spectacle of themselves. Seeing overly dramatic people emote
is what theater is all about.
Large casts
are to straight Broadway plays as special effects are to Hollywood
movies — expensive and difficult, but awe-inspiring when they're
pulled off right. The Crucible, as directed by the British
impresario Richard Eyre, pulls it off. I'm sorry to have to praise
it, given Arthur Miller's moral idiocy about Communism, but what
can you do?
|