It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the U.S. government blacklisted accused communists.
Starring Ben Whishaw as John Proctor, Tony winner Sophie Okonedo as his wife Elizabeth Proctor, Saoirse Ronan as Abigail Williams, and Ciaran Hinds as Deputy-Governor Danforth.
The production will be directed by Ivo van Hove, and will have scenic and lighting design by longtime van Hove collaborator Jan Versweyveld, costume design by Wojciech Dziedzic, and an original score by Philip Glass. Additional casting and design team will be announced at a later date.
There are two types of audience members attending Ivo van Hove's The Crucible: those who take their seats and, when the curtain rises, wonder, Why's it set in a classroom? and the other half (please let it be more than half) that nods and thinks, Of course it's in a classroom. Van Hove's electrifying and audacious staging achieves what more revivals should: It makes old work seem new, blows away the dust and exposes caulked cracks...Miller's masterpiece, still a model of post-Ibsenite drama, holds up: Society is forever torn between preserving its power structures and extending freedoms. Those caught in the middle pay the highest price...the cast is ridiculously stuffed with talent...The country beyond the walls of the Walter Kerr may be damned, but inside, Van Hove is wrestling with the angels.
Almost operatic in their intensity, [Van Hove's] productions are designed to leave audiences agitated and uncomfortable, which is notably the case with this distressing 1953 drama, with its steadily amplified sense of horror and indignation...the mesmerizingly acted new production trades the play's specific period and milieu...for a pared-down look and non-naturalistic, indeterminate setting...the production presents a chilling account of the institutional arrogance and ignorance that are a threat to civil liberties in any age, particularly when the dividing lines separating politics, religion and the judiciary become blurred...The face of this production is Saoirse Ronan, icy and commanding in her first stage appearance...As strong as the ensemble is, the indispensable anchoring forces are Whishaw and Okonedo, both of them devastating.
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