Status Updates From The Crucible: A Play in Fou...

“It is a study of a society that believes in its unique virtues and seeks to sustain that dream of perfection by denying all possibility of its imperfection. Evil can only be external, for theirs is a city in a hill.” I haven’t even read the play yet but I see how perfect the story is for theater because it’s so universal. I love the comparison to Greek tragedy - stories that have a universal humanness.

“I had known this story since my college years and I’d never understood why it was so attractive to me. Now it suddenly made sense. It seemed to me that the hysteria in Salem had a certain inner procedure or several which we were duplicating once again, and that perhaps by revealing the nature of that procedure some light could be thrown on what we were doing to ourselves.”

I had wondered if Miller was influenced my the McCarthyism of his time or even if he intended the play as an allegory. The witch trials are almost like the perfect example of a historic event that can be so frequently referenced in modern times. The way it’s made its way into our modern lexicon with politicians calling investigations “witch hunts.”

“And after you have studied their lives faithfully, a remarkable thing happens; you discover that if you really know the few, you are on your way to understanding the millions. By grasping the local, the parochial even, it is possible to make a beginning at understanding the universal.”
Love this excerpt from the intro from the book that inspired Miller to write the crucible.