A Student Handbook to the Plays of Arthur Miller by Alan Ackerman;Enoch Brater;

Author:Alan Ackerman;Enoch Brater;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408185681
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2019-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

Major Productions

On stage

The Crucible opened on 22 January 1953 at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway. Despite its later success, the play’s initial reception was mixed, though this might have been partly the result of its being perceived as a work critical of current politics. Although it won Tony and Donaldson Awards for Best Play, some critics were quick to condemn both play and playwright. The production only ran for 197 performances, 545 fewer than Death of a Salesman. After the tremendous success of Death of a Salesman, some critics felt let down, and saw The Crucible as less innovative and therefore a step backwards. Walter Kerr said it was too mechanical and overtly polemic. Eric Bentley notably attacked the play, claiming that Miller’s naive liberalism and depiction of innocence reduced it to melodrama. Even Miller’s staunch ally at the New York Times, Brooks Atkinson, had reservations, concerned that the play was ‘more like a tract than a drama about people’.

There were difficulties with the initial production. Unwilling to work with Elia Kazan, because of the director’s friendly testimony before HUAC, Miller had to find someone else to produce his play. Despite a reputation for being difficult, Jed Harris took on the assignment. His working relationship with Miller was strained from the start. Harris disliked Miller’s choice of Arthur Kennedy to play Proctor, and demanded a series of rewrites in an unsuccessful attempt to undermine the playwright’s confidence so that he might gain full control of the production. His direction of the play was static; characters made speeches to the audience rather than to each other and Harris kept them frozen in tableaux while speaking their lines. This approach made critics view the play as cold and unemotional. After the initial reviews, Harris withdrew from the production and left Miller to try to salvage the show. Miller tightened the script and added a new scene at the close of the second act between Proctor and Abigail, recycled from an earlier draft of the play. Yet the New York production never captured the play’s momentum.

In 1958 the Martinique Theatre was built out of an old hotel ballroom. The arena stage that resulted allowed for The Crucible to be presented in the round, which instantly made it more accessible. Henry Hewes felt it had ‘more emotional impact’ than the original Broadway production, and Lewis Funke admired its ‘absorbing vitality’, describing it as ‘provocative’ and ‘stimulating’. Atkinson changed his mind about the play, praising its more vibrant staging, fluent pacing and the way the characters were presented with admirable modulation. Utilising moody lighting, Word Baker kept a fast directorial pace by having his actors change props. Miller wrote additional background information inserted into the first act. Though rarely included in performances since, these notes were read aloud by an additional character, the Reader. Baker also placed a strong focus on Proctor, played with simplicity and vigour by Michael Higgins, making the role more clearly the play’s centre. After several extensions, the production ran for 653 performances, proving the play’s theatrical strength.

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