{"id":144,"date":"2017-02-15T02:01:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T02:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/?p=144"},"modified":"2024-03-12T23:49:07","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T23:49:07","slug":"the-crucible-the-perfect-play-for-our-post-truth-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/?p=144","title":{"rendered":"The Crucible: the perfect play for our post-truth times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the 50s, Arthur Miller used 17th-century Salem to comment on the \u2018red scare\u2019. His drama is chillingly pertinent in the first weeks of Trump\u2019s presidency<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Scenes of fear and fervour … Arthur Miller at work in the mid-1950s. Photograph: New York Times Co.\/Getty Images<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Is The Crucible<\/a> the ultimate post-truth<\/a> play? Although it was written in 1953, Arthur Miller\u2019s drama holds particular significance in the current political environment, as we\u2019ve found during rehearsals for our new production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the opening scene of Act 2, a delicate depiction of a husband and wife, John and Elizabeth Proctor, overcoming adultery. The scene ends with the townspeople crashing in with news that warrants have been signed for the arrest and examination of 16 innocent individuals, including Elizabeth. In rehearsals, I ask our cast to think of Donald Trump\u2019s travel ban<\/a> and a rumoured executive order<\/a> repealing LGBT anti-discrimination laws. The scene works. It generates the fear and fervour that Miller has written.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miller wrote The Crucible when America was prosecuting alleged communists. Originating with a presidential executive order, the \u201cred scare\u201d became an obsession, ripping through all aspects of American life from the state department to Hollywood. It was a campaign of fear that turned people against each other, destroying lives, careers and friendships in its wake. Miller wrote<\/a> that it \u201cparalysed a whole generation and in a short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration\u201d. Miller felt compelled to respond. Worried about being identified as a \u201cred\u201d himself, he turned to the Salem witch trials of 1692<\/a> as an allegory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Act 3 of the play \u2013 the big trial scene \u2013 the judge says: \u201cA person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between.\u201d It bears a stark resemblance to US press secretary Sean Spicer\u2019s less eloquent words regarding dissenting government officials: \u201cThey should either get with the programme or they can leave.\u201d The \u201cprogramme\u201d in The Crucible is the prosecution of more than 150 men and women accused of witchcraft. Miller talks about the paradox of a community that has created a society grounded in the idea of \u201cexclusion and prohibition\u201d. Its sole function is to keep the community \u201ctogether, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction\u201d. The Daily Mail\u2019s recent branding of the judges presiding over the Brexit supreme court ruling as \u201cenemies of the people<\/a>\u201d if they voted for it or \u201cchampions of the people\u201d if they voted against, has the same whiff of exclusion and prohibition. UK citizens are now more likely to identify with leave or remain than they are with a political party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u2018Get
\u2018Get with the programme\u2019 \u2026 White House press secretary Sean Spicer. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Miller\u2019s 17th-century Salem is a place rife with anxiety; it is a community in the midst of great change and flux, where social structures are weakening. Some parts of the community feel as if they are losing control \u2013 the world isn\u2019t the same as it was. Licensed by a series of convenient lies, post-truths and \u201calternative facts<\/a>\u201d, long-held hatreds of neighbours are openly expressed and vengeance taken. Hysteria takes hold. The most vulnerable are targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eighteen months ago, David Hutchinson, director of the touring company Selladoor Productions<\/a>, approached me with the proposal of making The Crucible together. I\u2019d wanted to programme more work that would appeal to schools, and of course the play is one of the greatest stories ever told \u2013 it is precise, human, domestic, deeply moving, political and, more importantly, an emotional rollercoaster for audiences. It has also recently been removed from school curriculums<\/a>. Neither of us could foresee how pertinent the project would become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Miller said: \u201cI can almost tell what the political situation in a country is when the play is suddenly a hit there \u2013 it is either a warning of tyranny on the way or a reminder of tyranny just past.\u201d It would be presumptuous to say that our production will be a hit, but until we have a new great play that will expose the machinations of our times, Miller\u2019s allegory will do, and it will do it brilliantly. Salem in the 17th century was a place where fear was used as a political tool, where outside threats were invented to explain current woes, where scapegoats were identified, hunted down and judged, and where truth holds no currency. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n