Director's Cut: Farber's direction of The Crucible
Playwrights are storytellers and I believe something magical happens when a storyteller takes on the mantle of director, breathing new life into another person’s story. Such is the case with Yael Farber’s direction of Arthur Miller’s esteemed classic, The Crucible. Miller’s themes in The Crucible have always been transcendent; the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 provide a historical setting that eerily parallels the Red Scare Miller lived through in the 1950s. The message is evident: what is happening now has happened before and will happen again. How provocative, and how important, then, that a visionary directory like Farber would direct this play when islamophobia is on the rise in our culture.
The brilliance of Farber’s direction lies not only in her exquisite handling of the text, but in the balance she cultivates between intensity and silence. Many productions of The Crucible suffer from an assumption that the puritanical figures of the time would be in full control of their actions and emotions. The audience is then left with lengthy discussions of witchcraft in polite and civil tones.
But Farber elevates The Crucible and its themes through the shrewd understanding that human nature is volatile , even within a community as staid as that of the Puritans.
From the opening scene, the music, lighting, and physicality of the actors, led by
the incomparable Richard Armitage as John Proctor and a spellbinding Samantha Colley as Abigail Williams, combine to create an otherworldly sense of terror and intimidation. Witchcraft within the Puritan community is often scoffed at by modern audiences, but there is a malevolent presence in this production darker than any conjured devil. Deep in the hearts of these girls, whose bodies twist and contort with enough conviction to convert any non-believer, there is a war raging. Somewhere between the fear of discovery and the thrill of power lies a human spirit capable of murder. F
arber’s audience surrounds the action on stage, becoming culpable witnesses to the hysteria, and those of us watching from home do not escape liability. In the face of fear and death, would we get pulled under by the flood of mass panic? Or would we stand up against the tide as John Proctor does and claim “Lies, lies”? As Miller’s play suggests, someday soon, we may need to decide.
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Rachel Luann Strayer is a playwright, theatre artist, and educator. Her play Drowning Ophelia has been produced in San Francisco and northeast Pennsylvania. Currently she is teaching American Literature and communications classes at Keystone College. This summer she will direct Julius Caesar for the theatre company she co-founded, Ghostlight Productions.
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