"Arthur Miller's The Crucible"

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 Sophie Okonedo and Ben Whishaw
Photo by Jan Versweyveld

Whatever was anticipated or expected from the provocative and always challenging director Ivo Van Hove, his unique approach to the classics (“A View from the Bridge”) as well as to modern works (“Lazarus”) virtually insured us a stunning and arresting revival of “Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” Be prepared for a staging that more than equates this classic drama to its theme and to its relevancy in today’s world.

The mass hysteria that the Salem witch-hunt provoked in the 17^th century was no more or less insidious an epidemic than the one that McCarthyism fostered during the 1950s. We need never forget the political, moral and ethical issues on trial, in either century, thanks to Miller’s arresting drama of rampant intolerance and misguided religiosity. “The Crucible” is the play he wrote in 1953 specifically to denounce the prevalent inequities of so-called justice.

In yet another century, and in the light of the most recent and horrific events that surround us and invade our consciousness, the sixty-three year old play asks us if we are prepared and willing to be tested again, to see how one’s rage and fear is apt to be manipulated and used to create another witch-hunt? Just when I thought I’d had enough of Miller’s award winning classic, it has been given a hauntingly illuminating and thought-provoking production at the Walter Kerr Theatre.

With a highly controlled amount of hysteria, Van Hove is giving us a most chilling and non site-specific consideration of Miller’s troubling  play. The infamous Salem witch trials of 1692, with its not too subtle political analogies, were dramatized by Miller to not only pontificate on the general evils of superstition and mass hysteria, but to vividly recreate a time when these human and inhuman aberrations lived in a society that feared both God and the devil, in equal propensity. “The Crucible” tells the tale of innocent people victimized by a jealous, lecherous girl and her young followers when their devilish fantasies get out of control.

As performed on designer Jan Versweyveld’s grandly abstracted/minimalist stage setting, made evocative largely by his own somber lighting designs, the plot abounds, sometimes chaotically, in accusations, denials, threats, and confessions. This havoc unfolds as the misguided minister Reverend Paris (Jason Butler Harner) and the Deputy Governor Danforth (Ciaran Hinds) interrogate the good citizens of Salem, Mass. Harner is as infuriating as a clergyman blinded by his own self-serving goals, as is Hinds as the chillingly stiff-necked and arrogant law enforcer. While it is the household of adulterous farmer John Proctor (Ben Whishaw) and his reverential, loving wife Elizabeth (Sophie Okonedo) that is the central focus, the involvement of the townspeople is made into riveting cameo scenes. Nothing alarming about Van Hove’s staging as it as expected another example of the kind of unorthodox display of pretentions that he famously showers on plays - - - basically attention-grabbing theatricality. Quite a season for this Belgium-born director.  

All the performances are first rate, with not a single actor either overstepping or under-addressing that fine line of credibility. Whishaw (whom I recently enjoyed in the BBC series “London Spy”) and Okonedo (Tony Award-winner for “A Raisin in the Sun”) as John Proctor and his wife, are extraordinarily moving and tragic figures in this riveting chronicle of a civilization run amok by vindictive predators.  Okonedo is impressive as the farmer’s wife who, although limited by the restraints of a puritanical social structure, reveals in her modest movements and tormented expressions a mighty spirit. Whishaw’s intense performance, as the stolid farmer guilty of adultery, but who ends of representing the most noble and ethical aspects of the human spirit, stands high among an altogether compelling company.

Memorable moments are also contributed by Brenda Wehle, as the dangerously literate Rebecca Nurse and Jenny Jules, as Tituba, the servant from Barbados. Teagle F. Bougere, as the irrational Judge Hawthrorn, makes a good case for the pompous attitude of the law. A steely Saoirse Ronan is appropriately chilling as the as the vengeful Abigail, a bad seed among a barrel full. Wojciech Dziedzic’s appropriately drab costumes offset the almost blinding tension that permeates “The Crucible” from start to finish.

Yet it is the sheer force of Miller’s writing that will have you reeling long after the final curtain. If nothing else, Van Hove’s version is a reminder that we need to see this play at least once in every generation to consider its meaning - - - to test as well as put on trial our moral and ethical fiber.

Walter Kerr Theater, 219 W. 48th St; tickets: $149 top. Opened March 31, 2016.