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A review by lanternheart
The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts by Arthur Miller
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Upon rereading The Crucible for the first time in many years, I was struck anew by Miller's masterful attention to the corrosive, ever-deepening well of his characters' regrets and guilts, spun outward and inflicted on one another as the most poisonous of pins.
The moving, trembling testimony of Mary, the Parris' servant taken into Abigail's confidence only to attempt to cry against her, the echoing call of the mob of accusatory girls parroting in wild power, and the eerie scene with Proctor and Abigail, removed from Act 2 but included in this edition, where he realizes how deeply she's come to needing to believe her own deception — these especially stuck out, but so too the tender, aching distance of the Proctors' marriage that might have been mended if either had forgiven their silent sins in a more gentle time. A stirring, tense landslide of a play showing how the wounds of both ourselves and accusatory societies of little power enable the wounding of others as the only means of individual power.
The moving, trembling testimony of Mary, the Parris' servant taken into Abigail's confidence only to attempt to cry against her, the echoing call of the mob of accusatory girls parroting in wild power, and the eerie scene with Proctor and Abigail, removed from Act 2 but included in this edition, where he realizes how deeply she's come to needing to believe her own deception — these especially stuck out, but so too the tender, aching distance of the Proctors' marriage that might have been mended if either had forgiven their silent sins in a more gentle time. A stirring, tense landslide of a play showing how the wounds of both ourselves and accusatory societies of little power enable the wounding of others as the only means of individual power.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Infidelity, Violence, and Alcohol