April 1, 2006: Miller, The Crucible
Gielgud Theatre. Royal Shakespeare Company. Stratford-upon-Avon production, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, first performed February 2006; first performed at the Gielgud, March 29, 2006. Directed by Dominic Cooke, Associate Director, RSC. Stage design by Hildegard Bechtler. Stalls F-8, £37.00. 3 hrs.
A truly stunning, memorable production, faultlessly acted, brilliantly directed. I seldom use so many superlatives in a single sentence, but this production merits them and more. There is a true inexorability to the advancing action, and finally there seems to be no discoverable gap of any kind between script and production. If any inconsistency at all emerges, it has to do with the accents. A program note explains that the majority of the Puritans came to the New World from East Anglia, and their accent, notably different from what we recognize as “standard” English, was used as a sort of benchmark in this production. Inevitably, some characters sounded more East Anglian than others; of the rest, some tended more towards standard English, others toward standard American. But there were no noticeable lapses, and after ten or fifteen minutes one forgot all about dialect, so deeply drawn into the play were we already. It seems ironic that, however consciously Arthur Miller was attempting to write dialogue in a way that would reflect the actual speech of late seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts, dwellers, it took an English company to come the closest toward approximating what he had in mind.
One aspect of Dominic Cooke’s brisk pace is to be found in the skill of the speakers at just-jumping line cues. Sometimes three actors seem to be speaking simultaneously, and yet can be distinctly understood. It is almost as if Cooke has contrived a musical score with a full range of dynamics indicated. I have seldom felt the kind of double consciousness I felt last night — of being fully absorbed in the dramatic action while simultaneously appreciating all that the director was doing with characterization, speech, movement, and clarification of the ongoing dramatic action to mount the play on the stage.
The casting is remarkably strong throughout, but especially so in the key roles. Iain Glen is all the playwright might have hoped for; he has a remarkable presence, a fine stature, a slightly gravelly voice but with a wide range of effects, and piercing eyes. And he is able to summon up from seemingly great depths that sine qua non of qualities of the Miller hero, a convincing and soul-stirring feeling of indignation. It was what moved and drove Willie Loman, and it is what moves and drives John Proctor, finally leading him to his death. His wife, Elizabeth Proctor, was winningly played by Helen Schlesinger, who embodied the requisite coldness of the character in the early part of the play in such a complex way as to make us think that other, better — or worse — circumstances might move her to overcome it. James Laurenson as Depu