Hotbed of theatre

THE CRUCIBLE, Royal Exchange Theatre, to October 24

THE Crucible is one of those plays whose idea is more important than the people it purports to be about.


Written, as just about everyone knows, when America was finding communists everywhere, it parallels the shameful and hysterical McCarthy un-American activities hearings of the Fifties with similarly shameful events in New England in 1692, when denouncing friends of the devil was the sport of the year but death, rather than ostracism, was the result of getting your way in court.

Miller’s masterpiece is long but rarely makes you stifle a yawn as injustice is heaped on lies and avarice and greed or revenge gives fanciful young girls the power to sway a court. By not applying common sense the court here believes honest townspeople consort with the devil and hangings follow — unless the condemned implicate themselves in the falsehood.

As in the Fifties, principle is held to be more important than pragmatism and many innocent people are harmed.

The Crucible is one of those plays it’s almost impossible to mess up: the speeches drip with irony, the court scenes stagger with their stupidity and cant and frankly, if monkeys could speak they could probably make a reasonable job of it.

But first-time main house director Caroline Steinbeis is fortunately more highly evolved and puts her rising reputation into a solid, intense and mostly passionate production in a sort of concrete sandpit that towards the end fills with (presumably cleansing) water to give the wardrobe department the job of drying out everyone’s shoes.

Occasionally Steinbeis tries too hard to amuse; and only fleetingly does she put the accusing girls terrifyingly too far over the line to back off and stop their games.

But strong performances put the production well into credit: Stephen Kennedy is a truly unpleasant Rev Parris and Tim Steed positively pious until it’s too late as the Rev Hale.

Peter Guinness is monumentally pompous as Danforth, the judge, and Jonjo O’Neill a powerfully honest broker as Proctor, visibly torn between saving his own life and doing the right thing by his friends.