November 12, 2008
-
The Crucible
Last Friday night The Professor, Tremor3258, and I went to the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre’s (MET’s) opening night production of The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller back in the 1950s. The play was ostensibly about the Salem witch trials in 1692 but was also about McCarthyism. Nowadays The Crucible is also unforeseeably about the post-Patriot Act era.
Ordinarily I am irritated if a play changes historical facts. However, Arthur Miller’s minor changes, mostly involving the ages of some of the characters and the introduction of an unprovable motivation, only add to, rather than detract from, the play. Bob Paisley (readers will need to click on the link to Artists), who also brilliantly played Werner Heisenberg in the MET’s production of Copenhagen last spring, was mesmerizing as farmer John Proctor in The Crucible. The rest of the cast deserves praise, too. Some of the characters were so hateful (as Arthur Miller intended) that I just wanted to leap up on stage and throttle them. (I didn’t.) By the end of The Crucible, I was crying and couldn’t stop the tears. (It wasn’t even one of the days I used Restasis®, so I can only attribute my reaction to the performance.) The MET certainly put on a marvelous performance of a classic American play.
One note about the theater itself. It is in an old midtown Kansas City storefront of nonexistence elegance and furnished with unwanted castoffs. The audience sits in old church pews. This is probably the coolest (as in 1960s slang) theater that I have ever been in. Clearly the MET is a labor of love.
The Professor, Tremor3258 (when he wasn’t handling computer problems from work), and I sat in the front row. At the beginning of the second act, the action moved in front of the stage. I had to uncross my legs because I was afraid I might accidently kick one of the actors. Now that is an intimate theater!
I honestly believe that Friday’s night combination of the play and the actors’ interpretation of the characters was the finest dramatic performance I have ever seen. I hope that any devoted readers in the Kansas City area seize the opportunity to see the MET’s performance of The Crucible.
Comments (1)
I agree that it was a powerful performance of a now-classic play. I’m not sure I would say it was the greatest performance I’ve ever seen, but it was definitely in the top ten percent. I was amazed at the size of the cast. You usually only see that large a cast in a Broadway-sized theater or in a high school play. I wonder about how the economics of that production could be made to work.