The Crucible at The Old Vic

By Rachel Fellows on July 17, 2014 Theatre

One can’t exactly look forward to seeing Arthur Miller’s 1953 play, The Crucible; not with the bounding sort of excitement that would have you springing into the stalls for a flighty Noel Coward number. Set in 1692, The Crucible is based on the infamous Salem Witch Trials, during which scores of townspeople in Massachusetts were tried on the charge of witchcraft on the basis of the strange turns taken by a gaggle of young girls. The girls’ fits and seizures, and their reactions to the accused were taken as hard proof of innocence or guilt and, ultimately, 20 people were executed, with hundreds more questioned, jailed or forced to confess. Miller’s tale is partially fictionalised but the most disturbing elements remain true to fact: the spine-chilling power of collective frenzy, and the unspeakable ways in which humans can torment one another.

Richard Armitage pulls in the crowds as the local farmer, John Proctor. Heartthrob factor aside, he has an undeniably intense presence on stage. Occasionally bordering on oaf-like, the plodding tread of his boots isn’t nearly as weighty as the load clearly on Proctor’s heart as he battles with the guilt of a reckless – and brief – affair with his servant girl. Matters are compounded when this girl’s bitterness points the witch-hunting finger at Proctor’s wife. Struggling with religion, morality and family duty at a time when justice is an elusive ideal, Proctor’s journey is bewilderingly complicated. And very, very bumpy. Hoarse and gruff, yet honest at heart, Armitage puts in a thoughtful turn.

There is no weak link in the cast, and incredibly moving performances come from William Gaunt and Neil Salvage in particular. Jack Ellis is belligerent and masterful as the deputy governor in charge of the trial proceedings, and Anna Madeley weathers gracefully as Proctor’s wife. However, one stunner is young Samantha Colley as the manipulative, vicious and wiley Abigail, the girl at the centre of the story’s trouble. Her self-assuredness even as she walks is eerie, especially when the direction has her nonchalantly carrying a noose in one hand as she enters the court. Colley is wild, primal and terrifyingly physical, with sheer madness behind the eyes.

Director Yael Farber is bold and stylistically plucky, making this production as dark and upsetting as it should be. In celebration of Kevin Spacey’s 10th anniversary at the helm of The Old Vic, the theatre has been redesigned to house a round wooden stage in the centre of what would be the stalls. If a crucible is a melting pot, then this is the cleverest of ways to show Miller’s play; as the drama reaches boiling point, with any semblance of good sense, valid legal process, theological righteousness or simple human understanding being burned away, you feel as though the stage itself might implode. It is suffocating and scary, and it almost starts to feel like the witch hunters are coming for you in the audience.

Visceral is a word that is bandied about all too freely these days, particularly in regards to theatre. It’s whipped out like a white flag to defend something that is, most likely, just a bit odd but too intimidating to criticise fully. Here, it is apt: Farber’s Crucible is ugly and gutsy, totally fearless, grinds right into the brain and seems so inwardly draining for the actors that you worry for their mental well-being in the blinding light of day. At three and a half hours, it’s a long watch, and a bloody tough one, but it is absolutely worth it and a genuine privilege to witness. It will make you stumble into the bar during the interval, unsure whether you need a large brandy or a slap in the face. Mission accomplished, I’d say.

The Crucible at The Old Vic runs until 13th September 2014. For more information and tickets, visit the website.

The Crucible

The Crucible – The Old Vic, until 13 September

It is unclear whether London is enjoying an Arthur Miller renaissance or whether he is one of those playwrights, like Ibsen or Chekhov, who is bankable enough and with enough star roles in the canon that he will always hover on the fringes ready for a new production. Either way, David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker combined in a pretty much perfect, highly traditional, All My Sons back in 2010, whilst earlier this year Ivo van Hove gaveThe Old Vic-The Crucible us a radically stripped back A View From A Bridge built around an absolutely blistering performance by Mark Strong.

Now, just metres down the road from where Strong put in a decent early bid for performance of the year, we have Miller’s The Crucible; a play that is audacious enough to not just have one Eddie Carbone role but several. It is Richard Armitage, playing John Proctor, who dominates the posters – one presumes Hobbit-y fame and a suitably jawline is the primary reason for this but it is a rather misleading image; Proctor may be a central figure, but this is a play that revels in a large cast and in the searching light that Miller casts across the residents of Salem.

That minor quibble aside, a mark of the power of this production is that the audience sat rapt for 3½ hours on the hottest day of the year whilst being subjected to periodic blasts of burning herbs and smoke effects. As good as Miller’s writing may by, those conditions did have the potential to induce a most literal understanding of the play’s title to the poor, sweltering audience members.

It is to the full credit of Yaël Farber that the long running time rarely seems like a drain and the action, simply staged but highly evocative of the period, speeds along building an inexorable momentum through to the third act climax before the sudden transition to a final act of quiet, where the heady atmosphere that has propelled the trials disappears with the disappearance of Abigail and space is given to reflection, on both spiritual and human levels. This is the much-needed calm after the storm and the reflection is for both Miller’s characters and for the audience who are suddenly pulled back out of the manic paranoia of the town.

Farber was responsible for the wildly successful Mies Julie – a South African-set re-examining of Strindberg’s classic – and given the contemporary allegories can be seen as strong now as they were when Miller wrote the play in the long shadow of McCarthyism, it must of have been tempting to look for a way to pin The Crucible to the modern world.

However Farber plays it straight and lets the parallels speak for themselves. It is Miller’s ability to create characters that are of their time but are yet clearly visible in the 21s century that makes The Crucible such an enduring work. The manipulations of Abigail, the fallibility of John Proctor and the hypocrisy of Judge Danforth are traits that are, and will remain, commonplace for as long as there are still humans walking the earth.

The Crucible may talk in terms of the soul but Miller’s writing is concerned about the psyche. There may be much talk about God and the Devil but it is human emotion that drives much of the action and Farber conjures up periods of quiet amid the maelstrom that allows the audience a moment to glance into the hidden frailties of the characters.

It is there when we see the look on Elizabeth Proctor’s (Anna Madeley) at the point she realises that when she stopped being a ‘good’ woman in order to protect her husband, she had in fact damned him, or it can be seen in the wheedling nature of Cheever’s response to Proctor that ‘I am the clerk of the court now, y’know […]’. We see in an instant that this is not a man doing what he believes but one who has seen the way the wind is blowing and the material advantage of taking sides; we see that to the very core this is a man who is dangerous precisely because he is weak.

It opens with a striking simple image of the cast gathered on stage subject to full scrutiny from the audience and from each other; each is tense and averting their gaze. It is a powerful opening and suggestive of a community where suspicion is the norm. Farber summons up a number of similarly powerful montages and these tableaus are presented with the air of ritual that continually brings the play back to the town’s obsession with religion, devilry and witchcraft.

The performances across the cast are uniformly excellent but the standout performance must be Adrian Schiller’s Reverend Hale. He captures perfectly the journey from pious observer who believes his own rhetoric about impartiality to a man slowly suffocated by Salem’s toxic atmosphere; his authority pincered between the elitist, disdain of the political Judge Danforth and his own questioning of the legitimacy of his opinions as events unravel. If there is light to be seen at the end of Salem it is through Hale and the journey that he appears to embark upon towards a personal salvation; he finds that God does not exist in damnation but in providing succour to the damned.

Richard Armitage gives a brooding physicality to John Proctor. He is well cast in the role and is strong as the man standing alone in the community and who, as is the nature of things, must become undone. He is able to bring a suitable gravitas, an unspoken dignity to his action, which is supported by a quietly menacing air of man who is no saint and is capable of physical harm.

Armitage and Schiller are excellent in the scene in Proctor’s house when Hale calls upon Proctor to prove his beliefs; the barbed exchanges a reminder that most of the play has the adversarial nature of a courtroom in itsTHE CRUCIBLE conversation and that dialogue is often presented as if through the accused and accuser.

It is an audacious move by Miller to write a play about the Salem Witch Trials and then not have any courtroom scene but the closest we come is Act III where the judges set up an ad-hoc courtroom to hear Mary Warren’s testimony. However within the play this absence seems natural and only serves to highlight that this type of ‘crime’ and the accusations of it are not something that can be captured in a legal process – it is about people, small town communities and petty squabbles, and it is about the whispers, the shadows and the chance to find advantage in long-running feuds over property rights.

Other honourable mentions must go to William Gaunt (winner of Civilian Theatre’s Best Supporting Actor award for his superlative Dogsborough in last year’s Arturo Ui) who brings a real pathos to Giles Corey; a man bearing the guilt of a misjudged comment that sees his wife accused and who finds himself crushed in the face of the hypocritical moral certainties of the court. Ann Firbank is brilliant as Rebecca Nurse who, despite her weak frame, stands to the end as an immovable force against the prevailing madness.

The witches themselves are also well portrayed and, with a nod towards Village of the Damned, exist in a private world of glances, furtive eyes and mute silence under the control of Abigail. The climax of their power is in the frenetic finale to Act III and it is here where a production could go off the rails but it was handled superbly; the stage, encircled by the audience, becomes its own cauldron; an overwhelming mixture of noise, smell, frantic energy and confusion. The audience are plunged right into the heart of the community and for an instant you can see the witchcraft that so convinces the townspeople.

If this production does not quite reach the heights of van Hove’s masterful A View From A Bridge then that is because it is a very high bar to reach. Farber’s production of The Crucible is an assured handling of the play that keeps it well framed in the past but has a staging that is very modern, an absence of clutter, functional props and underpinned by superb lighting and sound design (Tim Lutkin and Richard Hammarton) that are essential in pulling the audience back to the world of Salem. It is held together by a strong cast, some excellent performances and a narrative that retains its power both in the 50 years since it was written and the 300 years since it was set.

Theatre review: More subtlety needed in Yael Farber’s version of The Crucible
THE CRUCIBLE by Miller, , Writer – Arthur Miller, Director – Yael Farber, Designer – Soutra Gilmour, The Old Vic Theatre, 2014, Credit: Johan Persson/ THE CRUCIBLE by Miller, , Writer – Arthur Miller, Director – Yael Farber, Designer – Soutra Gilmour, The Old Vic Theatre, 2014, Credit: Johan Persson/

Bridget Galton Monday, July 21, 2014
1:19 PM


Yael Farber’s three and a half hour in-the-round, immersion into Salem’s witchcraft trials has little interest in brevity or delicacy, turning the mass hysteria up to eleven.

Slowly-building its oppressive mood of dread and paranoia, no line is spoken where it may be shouted, nor opportunity lost for characters to spring about and grapple each other.

Yet for all its raw passion and portentous atmospherics, you can’t help wonder might judicious pruning and greater repression in these buttoned-up Puritans have more potency? Could less have been more?

Spooks star Richard Armitage takes the showpiece role of John Proctor, a classic Miller individual, pitted against the forces of authority.

Guilt

Proctor’s struggling to right his dickering moral compass - guilt-ridden after committing adultery with servant Abigail, his spurned lover has now turned accuser with other village girls, writhing in fits and citing visions of the devil in the company of friends and neighbours.

Famously an allegory of McCarthy’s Communist witch hunt in 50s America, The Crucible could as easily be read today as a warning against religious fundamentalism or a study of how communities can turn on the outsider within.

Farber’s staging is simple, wooden tables and chairs, but she weaves her spell with dim lighting an ominous soundscape and brooding dumbshows.

Armitage is a commanding physical presence with smouldering intensity yet his performance lacks nuance, as does newcomer Samantha Colley’s, who rather overdoes Abigail’s sinister belligerence and power hunger.

The most moving moments emanate from Anna Madeley’s extraordinarily powerful stillness as Proctor’s quietly wounded wife. An example of less indeed being more.

Richard Armitage in The Crucible – review
July 23, 2014 at 10:50 am by greendragon -

As TORn’s readers know, our very own Thorin Oakenshield – actor Richard Armitage – is currently appearing as John Proctor in The Crucible at The Old Vic in London. Staffer greendragon went along to see the show, and she’s written up what she says is ‘half review, half an attempt to capture the atmosphere for those who won’t get to see this production.’ Here’s what she had to say:

My last trip to The Old Vic was to see another Hobbit cast member: Sir Ian McKellen was appearing there as Widow Twankey, in the pantomime Aladdin. That was back in 2005; and years before that, when I was not yet even a teenager, I used to have a season ticket to see all four shows each year at the theatre. At that time, The Old Vic was a familiar friend; but as I entered the venue this July, it was barely recognizable – not because of my long time away, but because of the unusual set-up of the space for the Old Vic’s ‘theatre in the round’ season.

Long lines of people waited patiently to get into that evening’s performance; the house was full, using all the seats circled around the stage. (I asked an usher where the nearest Ladies’ restroom was, and was rather surprised to receive the answer, ‘Just walk across the middle of the stage and you’ll see it in front of you.’ Really?? In fact, that is exactly what I did, weaving amongst the wooden chairs – haphazardly arranged, just one overturned – which made up the scant ‘preshow’ set.)

The walls of the theatre were draped with grey, grubby ground cloths, covering the Old Vic’s ornate auditorium. The set was made up of exposed brick and concrete, with a solid, grey floor with metal tracks (not used in this production, but presumably for a truck in another show) running across the middle. The effect was of being in an abandoned warehouse of some kind – an industrial, stark and yet somehow timeless space. As we gradually took our seats, smoke drifted through the space, and there was a smell of burning herbs. A quiet, dull but insistent throb hummed in the background, nagging at the subconscious. Our eyes, ears and noses were all being drawn into the tense atmosphere of Salem before the show even began.

The lights dimmed, and Tituba, Reverend Parris’ Barbadian servant, entered, chanting and wafting smoke from the cauldron of burning herbs. Her incantations seemed to conjure the players – people began to stride into the space. Dour, silent, eyes downcast and almost faceless in the half light, the cast filled the stage, some standing, some sitting; the tall, bearded figure of John Proctor took up a central seat. A pause, and then they raised their eyes to look accusingly at the voyeurs surrounding them. Right from the start, this was a production which was not going to let the audience off the hook; we are as guilt as any in this hysteria.

As the cast of unhappy villagers began to leave the scene, removing chairs as they went, Abigail Williams and her gaggle of girls strode on. They looked strong, intimidating, a gang who were in control – so much so that they brought with them the set for the first scene: Betty Parris’ bedroom.

This silent action at the opening was mirrored several times throughout the production. Arthur Miller’s play is not short, but here it was further lengthened by mimed interplay between scenes. Furniture was moved on and off by the cast, passing and crossing each other with baleful stares or averted eyes. Usually it was Abigail and her gang who created the scenes – reminding us each time how the power in Salem had been put into the hands of children.

The Crucible is a play which astonishes me each time I see it. Miller’s writing is almost unbelievably powerful; so compelling is the piece, that pretty much any staging of it is likely to be decent. Director Yaël Farber and her cast achieve much more than just decent; this is a dark, brooding, intense production. Costumes and furniture evoke the 17th century, but are so stark and minimal that they could almost be any period. Thus Farber succeeds in reminding us of the harshness of life in Massachusetts of the 1600s, but at the same time we feel that the action could be unfolding anywhere, in any time. We see how frightened people, feeling threatened, look for any scapegoat; how those on whom the blame might fall will point the finger at others, in order to escape; and how those in power can easily be swept down a path, from which they are too embarrassed to turn when it seems they have made a mistake. The speed with which things unravel in Salem is shocking, yet all too believable. Reverend Hale appears to put words in the girls’ mouths, in his eagerness to help the community to find the source of their troubles; when he himself begins to see the errors they are all making, it is too late to turn back. The dangers of religion and law becoming blended and confused, and church dictating to state, are scarily relevant today.

In all this gloom and anxiety, however, Farber’s production also brilliantly highlights the comedy of Miller’s script. Again, I was repeatedly struck by the strength of this play; Miller’s point is razor sharp, yet his writing contains humour, and somehow room for doubt and questioning. Delivering this incredible text, some actors fared better than others: William Gaunt as Giles Corey, Paddy Navin as Sarah Good and Adrian Schiller as Reverend John Hale stood out to me as being particularly compelling. Anna Madeley, who played Proctor’s wife Elizabeth, was also powerful, but occasionally her performance was marred by indistinct speech – a problem which plagued a few of the cast.

Richard Armitage in The Crucible at the Old VicRichard Armitage was, as one would expect, a strong central figure in the maelstrom whirling around him. With a short, stubbly beard, and closely cropped hair, he was a dark presence, often only half lit – just the kind of role he believes suits him best! (To quote Richard: ‘Do you know what? I’ve always said of myself, I look better in the dark and I look better dirty.’) He, too, was occasionally unclear in his speech; and sometimes he seemed rather stuck in declamatory mode, delivering lines such as ‘We will burn together!’ [hmm, sounds familiar...] in a manner which seemed melodramatic in this stark, revealing play. This high intensity was vocally evident; several reviewers have mentioned the hoarseness and strain which can be heard in his usually rich, mellifluous voice. Susannah Clapp, in The Guardian newspaper, wrote that the production ‘contains some unnecessary keening and writhing. It also contains a lot of shouting. Everyone is nearly always at full roar, sometimes improbably so: would two clandestine lovers really start yelling at each other in his house? The poison of rumour relies on stealth as well as force.’ Certainly, I would have liked to see Armitage trust his wonderful stillness more; in the intimate scenes between Proctor and his wife, his performance was utterly compelling.

Overall, this excellent production of an outstanding play didn’t quite manage, for me, to climb to extraordinary heights. It’s hard to say exactly why this was. Fascinating programme notes once AGAIN reminded me of Arthur Miller’s genius and insight; but I was left without feeling that I had seen Yaël Farber’s own insight. I wanted her to show me something else in the play, something which had special meaning for her and for her cast. This is not to say that I wanted some ‘unusual’ staging just for the sake of it, nor that I needed a ‘different take’ on the play. I just wanted to feel more how the words spoke to Farber, and to the actors; what did they each take away from it, personally?

When Elizabeth tells John, ‘Whatever you will do, it is a good man does it,’ I found myself wondering what Miller intended when he wrote those words. Did he want to forgive his friend Elia Kazan, who had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee? Or perhaps the action of the play seems rather to highlight this cooperation – confessing to ‘sins’ you did not commit – as the greatest crime, and it is only by avoiding this capitulation that Proctor finds his ‘good’. Miller’s writing leaves room for us to ponder these questions; but I left the Old Vic wondering if Farber had come to any conclusions in her own mind. Not sensing her insight, I wasn’t quite as exhilarated by The Old Vic’s The Crucible as I might have been.

This is, however, a minor point, which reduced the production to ‘only’ excellent and fascinating theatre, (as opposed to mind-blowingly extraordinary theatre!). According to Kevin Spacey (The Old Vic’s Artistic Director), Richard Armitage ‘has wanted to play John Proctor since his late teens’. It’s a great role for Armitage, and a wonderful chance to see him on stage, in a compelling production. The Crucible runs at The Old Vic until 13 September; do go and see it if you can.

Utterly Bewitching: The Crucible, The Old Vic Review
Posted: 24/07/2014 18:17

Yesterday I headed out to the theatre to see the wonderful Richard Armitage take on the audience at The Old Vic in an atmospheric and ambitious performance of Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible' on a balmy Wednesday afternoon to celebrate my anniversary. Sure, it's not the most romantic thing to see for your anniversary but it's what we did. The Crucible is one of my absolute favourite plays. Judging by the queue of people lined up at the stage door after the performance I'm not the only one who thought the performance was wonderful.

Their decision to make good use of the full potential of the stage and performing in the round, with some audience members actually sitting on the stage, was a really interesting choice. In between scenes the cast create interesting tableaux to create striking metaphorical images. The burning of herbs and release of dry ice start the play as Tituba enters, circling the stage, each step becoming more laboured as she walks around the stage. At the centre of the stage, chairs sit in a disorganised manner. The chairs face different directions. Some are on their sides. The cast enter the stage, taking their seats for a moment, all facing different directions as if to represent Salem's broken societal views and the uncomfortable discord within the town. They look out to the audience, to us, as voyeurs casting our gaze on Salem to remind us that in watching we become just as much of the hysteria as the characters. Then they promptly rise and leave, pulling the chairs away. The set design was perfect with a grimy and almost industrial feel. This created a cold, isolated setting as soon as you entered the theatre. The costumes, set and furniture were all so minimalistic that they did not distract from the players. Major points must be awarded to Richard Hammarton who created all of the background sounds and music. Uncanny noises like clanking metal and clinking glass felt familiar and yet strange in the darkness of the theatre. It created this constant throbbing sound that came in so subtly you hardly noticed when it started. It was minimalistic but eerily atmospheric. In between scenes, furniture was moved and sets were changed, and this was usually done by Abigail Williams and the other young women in on her devil-calling scheme. This served as a subtle reminder of how much control these girls had over the town.

Miller's writing is characteristically strong and powerful. Every member of the cast so skilfully carried the text. In the current run at The Old Vic, Armitage has ambitiously taken up the role of John Proctor. Playing the last good man in Salem, Armitage's performance was strong. Samantha Colley played the darkest and most vindictive Abigail Williams that I have ever seen. She masterfully manipulated her peers and gave such a strong performance. As Betty, Marama Corlett gave a really utilised her body as she contorted herself and writhed in her bed. As Giles Corey, William Gaunt managed to garner a few laughs in such a dark play. Anna Madeley perfectly captured Elizabeth Proctor's cold nature and delivered her final lines with an effortless grace. Yaël Farber has lead the cast superbly and created a wonderful performance from start to finish. It's just a shame that this play doesn't have a longer run. Every movement felt choreographed to perfection and a truly enigmatic performance was created as a result.

This is the most passionately intense performance of The Crucible I've had the pleasure to see and it is a real theatrical triumph.

Astonishing and heartbreaking: The Crucible at the Old Vic

Astonishing And Heartbreaking: The Crucible At The Old Vic

Richard Armitage stars in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

What happens when Yaël Farber and Richard Armitage take on The Crucible? They produce a deeply revealing comment on contemporary conflict and our own inadequacies, says Laura Brown…

A few hours before The Crucible began at The Old Vic, we were crossing the Golden Jubilee Bridge when a two year old in front of us refused to go any further. With nothing but the Thames on one side and rail tracks on the other, her parents could do nothing but lift her rigid body from the ground where she’d supplanted herself. She continued to scream, full throated, red-faced and spitty, as they carried her away. Children have always known that sometimes when you need attention, the louder you are, the more likely it is going to be forthcoming.
At just over three hours long, The Crucible at The Old Vic is a rumination on relying on a screaming, hysterical voice instead of sense; why when good men do nothing — and those in power rely on religious fundamentalism to make their decisions — society loses its foundation.
The Crucible is a tricky text, purely because it is so familiar to the many who study it. The allegory of the Salem witch trials of the 17th century as a critique of McCarthy’s House of Un-American Acivities can sometimes be hamfisted in the wrong hands (no irony intended). Yet here, what Yaël Farber as Director has created must surely be the definitive representation of Arthur Miller’s text. Dark, brooding and oppressive, but with space to breathe and reflect, it is a profoundly unsettling production that plays not just on the mind but the soul.
“Wait until you have to unfurl your knuckles at the interval; it’s not so much a natural break in proceedings but a chance to exhale”
The South African director offers no diktat for an interpretation for her Crucible. It is hard, however, not to reflect on religious fundamentalism now, on modern folly and ignorance: allowing a British teen who has fled the UK for Syria and Isis to define the image of British Muslims; allowing a prism of fundamentalist Christianity to be the voice we listen to when we want insight into equal marriage, women’s rights or FGM. Of religion used as a defence for war and a bedrock of fear. We allow hysteria and stupidity to have a louder voice and more control when what we should have is reflection, perspective and thought. In our often youth-dominated and mediated culture we need more John Proctors and Rebecca Nurses rather than Abigail Williams’.
Performed in the round, this is a Crucible that leaves you wrought. Richard Hammarton’s score echoes almost a chanting, a sense of impending dread. The set by Soutra Gilmour along with Tim Lutkin’s lighting glimpses a gloomy world where there needs to be more enlightenment. Here in the round, we do not feel complicit; yet with greying drapes covering the faded grandeur of The Old Vic, the shards of light from basement doorways and the deep, dark, mustiness of it all, you feel as though you are eavesdropping, watching people trapped with no escape. The only noise the audience makes is the odd guffaw (The Crucible is always surprisingly wry), gasp and applause.The air fills with smoke when we reach the farmhouse, and ash rains from the sky in the prison. Wait until you have to unfurl your knuckles at the interval; it’s not so much a natural break in proceedings but a chance to exhale.
As for the cast, it is they who wring every last drop from the round itself. Samantha Colley’s Abigail is piercingly dead-eyed, buoyed by her power as a namer of witches, a school-ground bully inspiring terror (the scene as she leads the children into convulsions is utterly, utterly petrifying). Jack Ellis as Deputy Governor Danforth is terrifying in his absolute and unyielding position — with a hint of daddy-complex. Anna Madeley is beautiful and graceful as Elizabeth Proctor; it’s hard to bring heart to someone often defined as a kind of Saint, but she offers an assurance that makes her closing scenes both satisfying and heartbreaking.
"Richard Armitage’s John Proctor is a confused man, almost a modern humanist surrounded by religious fanatics; a man troubled by his own doubts as he is afraid”
At the centre of it all is the human brooder himself, Richard Armitage (he of Hollywood blockbuster and theatre fame). His height means he looms over the rest of the cast. If he wished, he could almost crush them in his hands. His John Proctor is a confused man, almost a modern humanist surrounded by religious fanatics; a man troubled by his own doubts as he is afraid. He is roaring in his rage, fragile in his tears. It’s an astonishing performance. It feels so real I don’t know how you could turn this John Proctor on and off like a tap.
And what are you left with in the end, except for a slightly sore bum as you’ve sat, rigid and frozen, in the climactic closing act? Injustice happens when those in power cease to be good men and when those with a conscience fail to speak up and be counted, no matter the consequence. As John Proctor almost wails for someone else to decide what he should do, to want independence but also to be instructed, we ruminate on our own fear of speaking up, of our own inadequacy at staring down those waging wars, imprisoning innocence, labelling ‘difference’ a crime or using bigotry as a tool for power.
Too easily do we wait for others to speak first, dismiss our experience as we grow older, and instead let a younger and small-minded perspective shout the loudest. Sometimes, we simply fail to shout: “Stop!” If we are to define what we want our little villages to look like, then vengeance, stupidity and ignorance should not be allowed to dominate. Instead of letting hysterical children dictate, we should turn to those with a bit more experience.
In the hands of this director and cast, Miller’s 60-year-old play has never felt so fresh.
Laura Brown

Main image: Richard Armitage as John Proctor. Image courtesy The Old Vic

The Crucible runs at The Old Vic, London until Saturday 13 September 2014 – £10, £16, £21, £30, £45, £55

For more info, tickets and booking see oldvictheatre.com