Irony in Miller’s ‘The Crucible’
The blueprint for Eyre’s approach is to be found in Miller’s play, a long, strongly voiced indictment of human corruptibility and the dangers of falling in line behind leaders who prefer convenient orthodoxies to the more complicated truth. Miller was writing with a fervent point to make in 1952, when the Red Scare was gaining dangerous momentum. He was trying to shake his audiences into an awareness of the gathering storm and its threat to the rights of the individual enshrined in the Constitution.
Almost half a century later, that context is history, and yet the polemical fierceness of the writing remains embedded in the text, which unfolds with such heat that it often plays like a melodrama with social and political overtones. The strict delineation of guilt and innocence in the primary characters leaves little room for nuance, for example, with the noble Proctor (adultery notwithstanding) and his good wife allied with a couple of ornery townsfolk against the forces of self-righteousness serving self-interest.
Miller was certainly an intelligent analyst of the ways in which ignorance, fear and envy can be dressed up in the clothes of piety and thereby given moral authority and
worldly power. And watching this process taking place can be a harrowing experience, as it often is in this terrifically acted production, which boasts a cast that manages to outnumber the parade of above-the-title producers. ` But the triumph of unalloyed evil over unalloyed good is not a spectacle that can be comfortably stretched over three hours of drama and still retain its fascination. Eventually, exhaustion sets in: The vehemence of Miller’s writing eventually saps some of its dramatic effectiveness.
This is by no means due to a lack of conviction or skill on the part of the evening’s performers. In his thoughtful performance as Proctor, the effortlessly charismatic Neeson subtly delineates a man’s moral evolution, as Proctor moves from casual scorn for the proceedings to outrage to soul-stricken despair as his attempts to fight for justice are systematically denied and then used against him. Perhaps the finest aspect of Neeson’s performance is its admirable restraint: He never insists on Proctor’s nobility, even when Miller hands him the material for that kind of grandstanding; he accentuates instead the man’s be wildered, increasingly desperate attempts to avoid his martyrdom. Laura Linney gives a likewise restrained but deeply felt performance as Elizabeth, whose integrity is inextricably and tragically linked to strict control of her emotions.
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