- November 23, 2024
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Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” is ostensibly about the 1692 Salem witch trials; but when it was first staged in 1953, it was clear that the play was also an allegory about the dangers of McCarthyism — so much so that Miller became a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Forty years later, Miller wrote a screenplay version of “The Crucible,” for a 1996 movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis. As he did so, Miller reflected on the years in between, writing in the New Yorker, “I have lost the dead weight of the fear I had then [in 1953]. Fear doesn’t travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory’s truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next.”
Does “The Crucible” still terrify, in 2021? Palm Coast audiences will find out this month, as City Repertory Theatre produces the play under the Palm Coast Arts Foundation's tent at Town Center.
Starring Agata Sokolska, Beau Wade, Fortunato Seveninni, Angela Young and Phillipa Rose, “The Crucible” is directed locally by Les Ober.
Ober has directed almost 200 plays in his career and taught high school for 36 years, in Connecticut. This is his CRT directing debut, after moving to Grand Haven two years ago.
It will be Ober’s third time directing “The Crucible” in his career. In one high school production, he even brought the cast to Salem to see the gravestones of the characters they were about to play.
In this 2021 production, Ober has put his own twist on the ending. “I didn’t rewrite Arthur Miller’s play — I wouldn’t dare to do that,” he said with a laugh. “But I changed the way it’s presented.”
The play, he believes, still resonates. “We talked to the cast about this a couple weeks ago,” he said. “They said, ‘Some of this stuff we’re talking about — it’s very relevant.’ And it’s true. The whole concept that the people who were trying to protect the witches just kept silent — that’s something that happened in McCarthyism, and I think it’s kind of contemporary as well. It divided Salem so much.”
“Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.”
— from Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"
