Review: (Toronto) The Crucible

William Webster, John Jarvis, Courtney Ch'ng Lancaster & Hannah Miller (photo: Cylla von Tiedemann)

No one can know God’s will
Sixty years on, The Crucible proves it still has much to say
by Stuart Munro

When Arthur Miller’s The Crucible opened in 1953, the reviews weren’t kind. It was felt that the production had been too stylized and cold, even though the power of the text was clear to everyone. Nonetheless, the play went on to win the Tony for best new play, and a new (better received) production the following year cemented its status as a cornerstone of the American Theatre. Last night, Soulpepper Theatre opened a new production of this landmark play, which walks that fine line between cold remoteness and powerful text.

The Crucible is a fictionalized account of the Salem Witch Trials of the late seventeenth century. Using historical figures, Miller shows us not the courtroom, but the lead up to and behind-the-scenes actions of the famous trials. An allegory for the McCarthyism of the 1950s, the play constantly pits ideology against reason, forcing its audience to ask how educated and intelligent people could possibly believe their own rhetoric.

Director's Note: Atom Egoyan on Cruel and Tender

Arsinée Khanjian (photo credit: Bruce Zinger)

It may be possible to have a marriage without cruelty...

by Atom Egoyan

(republished by permission of Canadian Stage, Photo of Atom Egoyan by Bruce Zinger)

It's striking that one of the first dramas to deal with the subject of marriage takes such a radical approach in its presentation. In writing Trachiniae, Sophocles tells the story of the great warrior Heracles and his wife Deianeira. What makes the structure of his play unusual is that these two protagonists never meet on stage. It’s a love story of absence and longing, of distraction and pain, of substitution and remorse.

In creating his brilliant adaptation of Sophocles’ play, Martin Crimp has reduced these complex and competing emotions to two words. Cruel and Tender. Perhaps these are the most essential terms of the marriage we are witnessing on stage in this show. It may be possible to have a marriage without cruelty – a marriage in which partners never doubt they have made the right choice, a marriage without any moments of recrimination or longing for another life – but this is not the territory which Sophocles and Crimp are exploring.

Review: (Toronto) The Crucible

Justice and Faith

Ryerson brings energy to Miller's classic

by Beat Rice

This week, Ryerson Theatre School presents Arthur Miller’s Tony award winning play about the Salem witch trials, The Crucible. When a group of girls are found dancing in the forest at night, tales of witchcraft and accusations begin to take over the town. Soon women are arrested and tried, and the people of Salem are forced to choose between saving themselves and making sacrifices for what is just.

The cast of eighteen, comprised of the fourth year acting students, put on an engaging performance directed by Lee Wilson. Wilson directs with a quick pace, and with a strong understanding of the urgency and stakes of the characters and the trials. The run time of two and a half hours was hardly noticeable in the small studio theatre.