Playwright Miller Hears Crucible Echo

Playwright Arthur Miller has said he believes his play The Crucible is as relevant today as it was on its release 50 years ago.

Though The Crucible told the story of the Salem witch trials of 1692, the subtext was a comment on the McCarthy anti-Communism trials of the 1950s.

Miller told BBC World Service's Masterpiece programme he felt there were echoes of the House Committee on Un-American Activities' investigations - founded on fear of the USSR - in many of the policies of the current Bush administration.

"This threat from abroad is a very useful way of holding onto power," Miller said. "We've got it now with Bush and Iraqis."

(snip)

Miller himself commented that he was reminded of how the play was received in 1953.

"They would say to me, 'this is all fraudulent - there never were any witches, but there are Communists'," he said.

"I could only say that in 1692, if you had stood on the main street of Salem, Massachusetts, and said 'there are no witches', I wouldn't want to be your insurance man."

more…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3182451.stm

Embarrassed to admit it. Now I've got to find out all I can, thanks to you!

From your ariticle:

(snip) "The country was at the height of its fears of an imminent Communist invasion, and some of the absurdities of that era were already showing themselves - people were being fired out of jobs in libraries, schools, Hollywood, everywhere - on suspicion of having sympathies with the Soviet Union," Miller recalled.


The Crucible was written in response to the McCarthy hearings
"The wave of fear was palpable and I myself was scared, because it seemed to me that we were being manipulated.

"It was a tawdry time, it was a rotten time to be alive, and I tried through this play to throw some light on it," he said.

Certainly, even in America - with its constitutional commitment to free speech - Miller had to be careful, which was the reason for setting the play at the birth of the country.

"He had to select a historical period so he could get away with the play, because it would never have been put on had Miller written it as of the time and as of the McCarthy period which he was writing about," Branch Marvin, a theatre producer who saw the original Crucible on Broadway, told Masterpiece. (snip/...)

with Daniel Day Lewis - you should be able to find a DVD or video of it.

Didn't know. Should be very interesting to study now, having learned something about the actual background.

The fear of witches, the most unChristian slavery to superstitiuous fear
was itself a pagan horror intent on ssacrifice and murder, and fear cures became debasing entertainment as well. It's in the books but no lessons learned by society. Not the real lessons anyway.

AFTER Miller, further study into the Salem event I thin more specifically uncovered a convenient family feud over property holdings as the strongest subtext for the charade. Ironically the play only carried people so far as to be ashamed and enlighteneded about the mob justice legitimized danger, not the what the judges were about. Today most high school students read this play twice removed from their reality and shadowy in its lessons and take the same rote moral home. Gosh, look how these people stood up to being railroaded, just like the McCarthy times. Vague, vaguer, harmless. Just another form of angst entertainment to deal with our "past".

It reminds me of the Puritan Bushes. Iran-Contra, etc. Attack the evil(if you can) but the "sinner" not only goes unpunished but returns to perpetuate the wave of crimes, motives and persons not held to accountability.

As the centuries shamefully bury their innocent dead, those causing, instigating and profiting from each repetition of the SAME thing continue with their booty, their heritage of power and their respectability.

The soldiers and citizens dying in Iraq are busdy with their own madness. At home poverty madness and loss of democracy rage into private dramas or shame. The doers are still sitting up there enshrined.

One may even be you next Commissioner of Baseball while his brother the "E-President" herds the blind sufferers into the slaughterhouse.

I consider Miller America's greatest playwright,
and have been wondering when he was going to
speak out. Especially given how relevant The Crucible
is today. He's still an active playwright too,
so I wish he'd write something new, directly
in response to current horrible events.

If Miller writes something he can get it produced
on broadway in an instant.

Hell, Harold Pinter is a major playwright, who
is also outspokenly disgusted with Blair and Bush
et al. He even has essays and poems on his website
(http://www.haroldpinter.org/) about the US/UK
Iraq war crimes.

Write plays about it you guys!

Wow, if only we could get Tom Stoppard and
David Mamet on board. Playwrights for truth
and justice...