The Crucible Sets News Standards

THEATER

The Crucible

by Arthur Miller

directed by David Travis

Agassiz Theater

through April 30

There would have been a third curtain call had the set crew wanted to stay. But like the few who did not make it out of their chairs for a standing ovation, they were either drained or still preoccupied with the play. Some around me were mulling the scenes over while others hardly seemed to realize it was a play at all. The woman in front of me cursed and moaned in disbelief throughout. I prefer a different angle on the strength of this play's illusion; I have waited a long time for a production I could simply rave about, and here it is. With a stunning rendition of Arthur Miller's wrenching masterpiece, The Crucible, director David Travis and company have raised a standard of quality to which the Harvard-Radcliffe Drama Club can aspire.

Most impressive about this production is the depth of the cast and the superbly understated direction from Travis and assistants. Nearly every aspect of Miller's potent script, major and subtle, has not only been captured but reinvigorated with a freshness that cannot help but echo its modern and contemporary parallels. Miller showed that Salem's witch hunts described the anatomy of McCarthyism in the late 40s and early 50s to the great dismay of his audiences. Today, instead of McCarthy's right-wing purges, an illiberal but leftist politics, sexual and otherwise, elicits similar dismay. Whatever other parallels come to mind, Travis taps into that reaction by hitting the chords that suggest witch hunting has merely taken on different forms as social codes have evolved. The Crucible follows the pernicious brush-fire of lies that threatens one small community as it struggles to re-establish order at the expense of personal freedom.

Travis elucidates Miller's central conflict, that between social standards and rights of the individual. On the toughest and touchiest of legal ground, accused is pitted against accuser in a private realm where testimony is merely personal, and a victim's deposition is easily manipulated and abused without corroboration. Even written confession becomes meaningless because it is given under extreme duress where relief is desirable at any price. The accused fights to save name and face without offending societal standards, but there is no way to win. It's either sell out or lose out, and the weak save themselves while the good are persecuted.

A stark but durable set (designed by Travis) reflects the simple strength of characters like John Proctor (Michael Efron), who is turned into an enemy of the state, fighting charges of conspiring with Satan. He is clearly innocent but the lies build up against him. Out of personal vengeance, his former lover Abigail Williams (Jessica Walling) implicates him as a channeler in devils. She has begun an elaborate lie to save herself from the same charges she lodges against others.

At the production's heart lies the consistently solid portrayals of Miller's panoply of good and evil. Most notable is Efron's sturdy but tainted Proctor whose one mistake returns to undo him during the witch trials months after his crime. The utter insanity of the proceedings culminates with a confession, the only legitimate one lodged in the court in months, and it proves to seal his fate. Meanwhile the perjury of others not only protects them but esteems them in the eyes of the court. Efron's simmering outrage underlines the impotent justice of Judge Danforth (Richard Gardner).

The germ of Danforth's dilemma is more potent today than when Miller wrote the play in 1953. Conviction and acquittal are reached solely on the basis of personal testimony, character witness, and most importantly, the social climate which dictates the popular mood under which judgments are reached. Walling effectively draws Abigail as malicious and manipulative, playing with her power as she would a dumb boy-toy.

In turn the judges are excellent at drawing themselves as perfectly sincere, forced to give weight to Abigail's testimony because of the seriousness of her accusations. Just as the personal sensitivity of criminal assault or rape cases merits special consideration for the women who are forced through the humiliation involved, those like Abigail who abuse the consideration and the power of accusation for personal vendetta elicit the greatest outrage from society because the entire institution of justice is undermined.

Little by little the maddening effect of lies delivered with perfect sincerity works on the audience, most notable the women who repeatedly groaned in front of me. Proctor has no way to disprove the charges and no way to undo the defamation. He is like the accused who appear in the papers as certain criminals, but with a confession extracted under the extreme pressure brought to bear in emotional testimony, he merits another look. Travis' expression of this utter outrage towards Abigail's treachery, coupled with the poignancy of Proctor's impotence in defending himself with mere words against mounting lies, builds to a moving denouement with Proctor's non-choice between false confessions and ostracization, or truth and certain death.

The frustration is palpable. The agony of Proctor's plight is cutting. For all his education, the black-hearted Reverend Samuel Parris (Scott Shuchart), who brags he has graduated from Harvard, shows the same can happen here, with or without "Veritas" engraved in stone over every archway. To everyone on the cast and crew, congratulations. The production is thoroughly outstanding.