‘The Crucible’ Review: A Soggy London Revival of Miller’s Masterpiece
David Benedict There is an opera of “The Crucible.” Written by Robert Ward, it won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize. But this is not the opera… or is it? Lyndsey Turner’s grandiloquent National Theatre production of Arthur Miller’s imperishable 1953 classic is so overloaded with singing from the opening period-style choral folk song to a final major-key angelic chorus — not to mention a permanently portentous soundscape — that you could be forgiven for mistaking it for the opera. While some 69-year-old plays need dramaturgical assistance to be successfully revived, this is not one of them. Turner’s decision to “assist” the play is also there in her equally operatic visual response. In 2016, she and designer Es Devlin transformed the naturalism of Brian Friel’s masterpiece “Faith Healer” at the 250-seat Donmar Warehouse by encasing the three-sided stage with a curtain of pouring rain lit so that the water gleamed like a cage of hard, white light. It was a fitting metaphor for Friel’s fictional village. Now reused for “The Crucible” in the 1,029-seat Olivier amphitheater, opening and closing the play and punctuating the scene changes, it seems less metaphorical, more an over-displayed effect.