Erin Doherty as Abigail Williams
and the cast of The Crucible
National Theatre London 2022
photo: Johan Persson
054 – The Crucible, by Arthur Miller
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The curtain rises on a candlelit bedroom in a home in Salem Massachusetts in the spring of 1692. The Reverend Samuel Parris kneels praying beside the bed of his inert 10-year old daughter. He is praying for her recovery from a mysterious affliction that has overcome her, an affliction that the local doctor suggests has no natural cause. An affliction from which she has not woken since she was discovered in the woods the previous night dancing with her cousin Abigail. Not only is their dancing a sacrilege in this Puritan community, they were also observed enacting some form of pagan ritual led by their black servant Tituba, a ritual that rumour now construes as the work of witchcraft. Has Betty Parris succumbed to a spell cast by spirits in the service of the Devil?
It is not long before this tight-knit Christian community is gripped by hysteria at the threat of witchcraft from within, a threat that many genuinely fear and that some will exploit to their own advantage. This is Arthur Miller’s powerful, cautionary play, The Crucible, which recreates the real-life terror of the notorious Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote the play in 1952-3 at a time when America was going through a modern witch-hunt, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the investigations of the House Un-American Activities Committee, who sought to prosecute anyone with sympathies or connections to Communism. The Crucible was not an unqualified success on its premier on Broadway in 1953, but it has gone on to become Miller’s most frequently produced play. There is clearly something universal in its exploration of individual betrayal and institutional tyranny.
To help us explore the origins, meaning, and enduring relevance of The Crucible, I am joined from New York by an indisputable expert on Arthur Miller, Dr Stephen Marino.
As we recorded this episode a new production of The Crucible can be seen at the National Theatre in London. It runs until 5th November 2022. Click here for more information.
Dr Stephen Marino
Dr Stephen Marino is the founding editor of The Arthur Miller Journal, which features essays on all aspect of Miller’s life, work, and career. It is published by the Arthur Miller Society, in cooperation with the Arthur Miller Centre at the University of East Anglia and St. Francis College in Brooklyn, where Dr Marino is also on the faculty.
He is also the former president of the Arthur Miller Society, and his work on Arthur Miller has appeared in many journals and essay collections. He is the editor and author of several books on Miller, including Death of a Salesman & The Crucible – A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (2015), Arthur Miller’s Century, Essays Celebrating the 100th Birthday of America’s Great Playwright (2017) and most recently Arthur Miller for the 21st Century – Contemporary Views of his Writings and Ideas published in 2020.
Loyal listeners may also recall that Steve did me the honour of appearing on the podcast in episode 13 about Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
Steve recommended two plays:
A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller, and
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard.
The Footnotes to our episode on The Crucible include some facts about the Salem Witch Trials and Miller’s invention; the meaning of the title of the play; and the instinct for self-preservation that drives many of the characters’ behaviour.
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Douglas
115 – The Dance of Death by August Strindberg
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August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death is set in a remote army base on the coast of Sweden, where an army captain and his wife are trapped together in an unhappy marriage. The captain, bitter at his lack of promotion, and his wife, frustrated at having been forced to give up her career as an actress, occupy their empty hours tearing into each other in a brutal dance of mutual cruelty.
Strindberg’s scorching portrait of marital strife was written in 1900, but has had a lasting influence. Arthur Miller dubbed Strindberg, “the mad inventor of modern theatre”, and echoes of his unflinching dissection of marital discord can be seen in the plays of Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and John Osborne.
Sir Richard Eyre adapted and directed a wonderful production of Dance of Death at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames earlier this year, and I am delighted that Sir Richard joins me in this episode to guide us through Strindberg’s blistering onslaught on marriage.
114 – Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost is described on the title page in the first publication of its text in 1598 as “A Pleasant Conceited Comedie.” I imagine that the epithets were intended to highlight the play’s courtly aesthetic, its frothy merry-go-round of courtship, and above all perhaps, its ostentatiously intricate word play. For it is a play rich in the love and perils of language.
I am joined to assay Shakespeare’s conceited comedy by the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, Tom Littler. In the summer of 2026 Tom adapted and directed a magical double bill of Shakespeare, producing Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing in repertory, and staging them both ‘en plein air’.
113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.
As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.
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