Schuyler plays Proctor instead as flawed - irascible, contrary, near-brutal - which makes more believable both his admitted sin as a “lecher” who cheated on his ailing wife, and his ultimate sacrifice as, in part, deserved penance for that sin. It’s further undermined by the short shrift the playwright gives early on to the two most compelling characters, which also deprives us of the energy radiated by the finest performances in this production, by David Heath (Judge Danforth) and the gripping Peter Schuyler (John Proctor), whose sensational performance finds a dimension often neglected in performances that play him as a too-noble, Atticus Finch-style paragon. That initial tension is needed to sustain the script’s momentum through its stumbling first act, burdened by muddled motivation, Miller’s decision to use a kind of faux Colonial accent, and some clunky exposition.

Suffice it to say that Palmer’s bold, Blair Witchy opening gambit - while entirely in keeping with the story - instantly ratchets the half century old story’s tension to maximum immediate urgency.

In the darkness at Hillsboro’s Venetian Theatre, the fear begins even before the lights go up, in a haunting unscripted addition whose impact might be severely lessened if disclosed here. Fear, unfortunately, is always a current topic - especially when so many political, religious and and other leaders lurk ever ready to exploit it.

Tying its new production to this more universal impulse helps B&B’s The Cruciblemaintain everything that’s always made the play powerful and memorable (despite the primacy of its fierce ideals over its relatively weak characterizations), while also imbuing it with an urgency and immediacy that make a play set during the 17th century hit hard today. Miller, writes Palmer, “is asking questions about what happens to us when we are afraid.” But while that’s true, Palmer believes the 1953 American classic is really about something much deeper, much rawer than McCarthyism or even its other obvious themes of extremism, religious tyranny, or mob mentality. In school, many of us learned that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is “an allegorical lens through which Miller examines the nature of McCarthy’s Red Scare” via a tragedy set during the 1692 Salem witch trials, writes Bag & Baggage Productions artistic director Scott Palmer in his program notes to the company’s new production.

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