Tom Morris’s production of Arthur Miller’s play, written in the 1950s during the height of the McCarthy witch-hunts and harking back to events in Salem in the 17th century, is the third major revival in just over a year. And why not? Like all good plays it shape-shifts to reflect the age back upon itself, and it will always be the case that in hard times, the unscrupulous will turn the situation to their advantage and good people will do bad things. Apparently when the play was staged in China, Miller was congratulated on his intimate knowledge of the techniques of Maoist oppression.
This is a plain production of a plain-speaking play and it’s none the worse for it. It doesn’t need updating and Morris doesn’t try, apart from one device: Robert Innes Hopkins’ design places some of the audience on stage, a jury of modern men and women in a 17th-century world where the wildernesses of both landscape and heart come knocking. There is a slight Day of the Triffids element to the trees that seem to have crept up to the courtroom window, like Birnam Wood.
This is an evening of admirable clarity and the storytelling never falters, although sometimes the acting does, particularly in the second half (because of under-rehearsal?), allowing uncertainty to creep in.
Miller was not a man of few words and as the clock ticks towards the three and half hour mark, momentum and tension dissipate, even as Dean Lennox Kelly’s John Proctor is caught between the desire to survive and the high price demanded.
Kelly is strong as the guilt-wracked Proctor, and as his wife, Elizabeth, Neve McIntosh is admirably unflinching, never courting sympathy and so winning it. Rona Morison’s Abigail plays the villain a little too obviously, but she’s a watchable, flame-haired demon, exploiting the weaknesses of a community that all too readily turns upon itself.
- At Bristol Old Vic, until 7 November. Box office: 0117-987 7877.
