There's a through-line from 1692 to 1953 to 2025 in Arthur Miller's all-too-relevant The Crucible showing at Prattville's Way Off Broadway Theatre: the Salem Witch Trials, Senator McCarthy's Communist "witch hunts", and today's world events where autocrats wield indiscriminate power, are supported by underlings who refuse to challenge their atrocious behavior, and rule with abandon by equating accusations with truth and shift blame onto perceived enemies of the state.
It is a cautionary tale that dramatizes how history repeats itself when people are deluded to trust profit-driven authority-figures who skirt the law by deflecting blame for their actions in order to retain power and influence.
Loud and repetitive emotional outbursts, religious fervor's appeal to a rigid interpretation of Scripture, and a refusal or inability to digest rational arguments in favor of conspiracy theories.
Though Miller's play is set in the late 17th Century, its conflicts, characters, and themes could have been lifted from today's headlines.
In theocratic Puritan Salem, Rev. Parris [Daniel Olm] discovered several young girls dancing in the woods one night, and questions their motives when his daughter Betty [Edith Tulibagenyi] lies comatose the next day; suspecting witchcraft from Tituba's [Tiffany Presley] influence on the girls, including his niece Abigail [Akex Rickerd], he calls for Rev. Hale [Gage Parr] to sort things out.
When John Proctor [Josh Williams] intervenes, it comes out that he had had a brief affair with Abigail, one which she still thinks he wants to pursue, and is willing to go to great lengths to take his honest wife Elizabeth's [Bre Gentry] place, her method to divert attention by accusing many of the most beloved citizens of witchcraft and enlists the other girls to back her up.
Innocent characters have little recourse against the devious charges, which all come to a head with the arrival of Deputy-Governor Danforth [Ben Holland] late in the play. He is Miller's arch villain in the drama; his authority is not to be challenged; he refuses clemency, and interrogates with guilty verdicts already determined. But his imposing presence is diminished by placing him behind a table and off to the side for most of his stage time.
Director Tye Terrell-Devore has her acting ensemble tell clear story-lines and relationships, investing them with emotional relevance. But at three hours playing time, the scene changes could be made more swiftly, and some indulgent pauses and over-heightened interpretations of dialogue slow the action.
Nonetheless, Miller's intentions are clear, and are unmistakably provocative in our current political world. It's a play that cries out to be seen and heard; one whose lessons ought to be heeded.
