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By Toby Zinman

For the Inquirer

The Crucible, a big idea-stuffed play by Arthur Miller, is having a big star-stuffed production at the Walter Kerr theatre on Broadway. Ivo van Hove, the much-admired Belgian director, replays this iconic Miller work in intriguing and surprising ways, following his raved-about A View from the Bridge during last years Broadway season.

The play is about the Salem witch trials in the late 17th century when a group of teenage girls, led by a manipulative and charismatic Abigail (Saoirse Ronan), condemned many of the men and women of the town as witches, and saw them subsequently hanged.


The "crying-out" is a fraud, motivated by Abigails lust for John Proctor (Ben Wishaw), a farmer who employed her. When his wife, Elizabeth Proctor (Sophie Okonedo),cheap retro jordans, senses the dangerous sexual attraction,www.yourcellan.com, she fires Abigail whose retaliation is terrifying; many are hanged for having made a pact with the Devil, all to serve Abigail will to power. As the trials go on, powerful judges (Ciaran Hinds) and clergymen (Bill Camp and Jason Butler Harner) are drawn into the theological and legal chaos, creating moral anarchy. As the title suggests, The Crucible is about men and womens souls being tested.

Back in the Fifties,jordans for cheap, this play was clearly about the federal governments "witch hunt" conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. But that was then, when both the play and the danger were more local. Van Hoves idea is far more global and contemporary, filled with ambiguities of time and place. It is still about self-righteous fundamentalism, extrapolate that as you will: the world and history are full of candidates. The Crucibles world is full of gangs and mob mentality: hysterical girls, god-intoxicated soldiers, governments, rebels.

The world created on stage is terrifyingly cold: wolves prowl and winds blow (there are three astonishing coups de theatre ); early in the play we hear, "You are no wintry man, John,cheap air jordan shoes," and at the end, "It were a cold house I kept!" Self-blame and conscience are for the good people, while the wicked smugly escape both judgment and punishment.

The set is built on a huge space and serves--first a schoolroom, then a farmers house, then a courthousewhile the blackboard grows more and more unreadable with chalked-over lessons. The stunning lighting (designed by Jan Versweyveld as was the set), shifts from sunlight to stark fluorescent. The time is both then and now.















Published: April 18, 2016 ?? 8:29 AM EDT

The Philadelphia Inquirer








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