Modern-day relevance gives The Crucible chilling context
MILLER’S CLASSIC PLAY REFLECTS HOW THOSE WHO RESIST GROUP THINK ARE TREATED
‘It is seen as an allegory for abuse of power’
A REVIVAL of Arthur Miller’s classic 1953 play, The Crucible, which opened at the National Theatre in London justifiably to very positive reviews, is literally about a witch hunt which took place in Salem in Massachusetts in 1692-1693, when scores of men and women “and two dogs” were hanged allegedly for fraternising with the devil.
I must admit I found The Crucible
chilling in the extreme.
A group of children are encouraged by their religious elders into a sense of hysteria to the point when perfectly innocent men and women are accused of appearing with the devil. This evidence is completely fake, of course, but on their say so, hundreds are accused of witchcraft and a number sent to the gallows.
It is the contemporary relevance of the play that makes The Crucible so frightening.
Miller wrote the play as a way of condemning McCarthyism, a reference to the controversial practices and policies of US Senator Joseph McCarthy, when the American government persecuted people accused of being communists through the late 1940s through the 1950s.
But the play is today seen as an allegory for the abuse of power by authoritarian regimes. It is not stretching the imagination too far to suggest that in Britain, there is a sort of witch hunt against people who happen to think that Brexit has not been an unqualified success, for example, or anyone considered “woke”.
Also targeted are those who question the civilising influence of the British empire or make too much about the UK’s leading role in the slave trade. The right, of course, think they are the victims.
The Crucible continues to be performed widely in India as the issues it raises, such as its treatment of minority communities or those who resist group think, are considered relevant to contemporary society.
The word “crucible” is defined as a severe test or trial; alternately, a container in which metals or other substances are subjected to high temperatures. There are characters in Miller’s play who refuse to sacrifice their principles or to falsely indict others even in the face of death.
Miller was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, famous not only for The Crucible, but also other works such as Death of a Salesman.
He is remembered for another reason too – however unlikely a coupling, he was married to the Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe (real name Norma Jeane Mortenson) from June 29, 1956, until their divorce on January 20, 1961. He was 40 and she was 30 when they married. Monroe was pregnant at least three times during their marriage, but miscarried each time, and never had any children. On August 4, 1962, she died at the age of 36 from an overdose of barbiturates at her Los Angeles home. Her death was ruled a probable suicide.
In 1952, Miller travelled to Salem to research the witch trials, using the information to create many of the characters and situations in The Crucible. He was questioned by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.
The House of Representatives charged the Committee on Un-American Activities and Propaganda, established in 1938, to explore political extremism. First, it investigated federal agencies. But by the 1950s, its focus shifted to individual citizens, including well-known artists, especially those working in cinema.
From the Second World War until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Cold War unfolded between the US and its allies and the Soviet Union with their allies. The height of the second Red Scare (1947-1957), led by McCarthy, directed investigations of un-American activities from federal employees to private citizens.
During this period, members of the entertainment industry were called before the committee and asked whether they were members of the Communist Party and if they had friends who were.
In The Crucible, Miller struggled to come to terms with the McCarthy-era political landscape, which revealed an uncomfortable resonance with the nation’s colonial past and contemporary present, but his play had wider implications than the two historical periods most often associated with the work.
The Crucible explored the founding history of the US to expose cracks in the political structures that needed repair, lest they spread and threatened the stability of the entire structure.
As Miller coped with his political present, he noticed that the atmosphere of hysteria that fed the Salem witch trials seemed similar to the contemporary energy contributing to the Red Scare – a term used to describe the fear of communism becoming the dominant economic system in the US.
“The Crucible shows how fiercely individuals will fight to maintain power gained through deception and quickly become swept up in deceit,” according to academic experts. “Both the Salem witch trials and the committee hearings reflected an all-consuming fear about a belief system that seemed to threaten the American majority. In Salem, the settlers’ Christianity could not abide the potential threat of witches. During the Cold War, the United States and its allies fought against communism within the United States and abroad.
“Miller turned to colonial Massachusetts to decipher mid-20th century political anxieties, making The Crucible a play about the presence of the past in the present.”
In The Crucible, the community members first attribute the presence of witchcraft to the only outsider, Tituba. According to the play, Tituba is enslaved and has travelled from Barbados with Reverend Samuel Parris to Salem.
In the opening scene, Parris attempts to discern what ails his daughter, Betty Parris, 10. At the same time, he tries not to draw attention to his niece, Abigail, who has been frolicking in the woods. Abigail’s woodland activities are a violation of Puritanical communal norms.
In one scene, Abigail accuses Tituba of being a witch.
Abigail: She made me do it. She made Betty do it!
Tituba (shocked and angry): Abby!
Abigail: She makes me drink blood! She comes to me every night to go and drink blood! Sometimes I wake and I find myself standing in the open door and not a stitch on my body! I always hear her laughing in my sleep. I hear her singing Barbados songs and tempting me with ….
Parris to Tituba: You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!
Putnam (a member of the community): The woman must be hanged! She must be taken and hanged!
And then there is the “insufferably arrogant” hanging judge, deputy governor Danforth, who shows how the law can be subverted by those in power in order to cow an entire population.
Danforth (addressing a man whose wife has been arrested and faces execution after being accused of being a witch): Do you know who I am, Mr Nurse?
He asserts his authority: “And do you know that near to 400 are in the jails from Marblehead to Lynn, and upon my signature? And 72 condemned to hang by that signature?”
Danforth reminded me of someone from revolutionary Iran in its early days – Ayatollah Khalkali, who went round the country “commuting” prison terms to death sentences. The Crucible is at the National Theatre
until November 5.