Spaeth on "The Crucible"

Also not from The Crucible

SHOW TIME

“Crucible” Looses With (sic) Hunt In Euclid-77th Play House
By Arthur Spaeth
Cleveland News, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 1954

In "The Crucible", being given stirring, disturbing life in the Euclid-77th Play House these nights, Playwright Arthur Miller has turned the pages of American history to strike a parallel with our times in the infamous witch trials of Salem, circa 1692.

It is not new to see Justice dramatized for us as a woman with bandaged eyes, being prodded and pressured into blind confusion by self-seeking men twisting truth and disregarding the rights of free men.

Cleveland’s Karamu theater is now showing us such a world in the sixth century before Christ when a wise Socrates must die because witch-hunting Athenian politicos elect him their expedient victim. There is brutally clear parallel with our hour in Maxwell Anderson’s “Barefoot In Athens.”

Hysterical Salem

And the parallel is implicit and as ominous in Miller’s angry poetic parable. The good and pious people of Salem trade sanity and reason for mass hysteria to accuse and hang helpless citizens as witches because of the tantrums of some silly Puritan girls.

I have said that such pictures of our imperfect world have been dramatized again and again. That is reportorial and not editorial. I meant no implication that there have been too many such plays or that our dramatists have gone overboard in rallying the theater to speak out against social cancer.

Alas, the contrary is too true. There can’t be too many such dramas. On hasty inventory, the writers in our theater today who have the courage to try to more than just entertain us can be counted on the fingers. Come to think of it, the fingers of one hand.

Lies & Gallows

Don’t get me wrong about Mr. Miller’s drama. It is no soapbox oration. The playwright does not cup his hand to your ear and demand you catch a modern echo. There is no ranting insistence that there, but for the Puritan garb, musical speech and 262 years, go you.

No, he trusts audience perceptivity and conscience as he looks into the lives of hard-working farmer John Proctor, Good Wife Elizabeth Proctor and their respected friends that are twisted to horror by the prattle of some silly girls.

At first the lies of the harpies seem too absurd but soon their splattering taint have become truth and the Proctors and others are tried and convicted of witchcraft in the Salem Meeting House. When doubt of its justice disturbs the court, John Proctor is offered the chance to save his neck by confessing to the lie of guilt. His refusal brings the roll of the drums beside the gallows.

No 'Death of a Salesman'

This is for the most part powerful and effective drama. But it is by no means on the lofty level with Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” There is a vagrant feeling that the author tried to compress too much shrill action and to crowd too many characters into his scenes. He achieves the hysteria of the witch hunt to the detriment of his forte for character insight.

You do not understand John Proctor and Goodie Proctor as you did Willy Loman and the wife who ate her heart out for her man. The other characters are largely the author’s chorus stepping out of the ensemble only long enough for each to contribute his single phrase to the collective insanity of the witch hunt. But for all this, “The Crucible” demands and gets your will to believe and be moved.

In this the author has zealous and artful collaboration in Frederic McConnell's staging and the excellent company with which he has peopled the Euclid-77th Salem.

Kirk Willis and Eve Roberts as John and Elizabeth Proctor ring wonder into those quiet scenes when they are alone on the stage. Rolf Englehardt’s with-hunting cleric who discovers too late the monster he has helped loose is pretty special, too. And that goes for William Paterson’s righteous deputy governor-inquisitor. Helen Watkins and Robert Allman as victims of the inquisition inject high spirit into their roles and Max Ellis’ malicious parson and Frank Stevens’ evil parishioner do the author and play no harm. And there’s Jane Squibb’s impure Puritan whose lies loose hell in Salem town. There is competence everywhere in the large cast.

And speaking of acting, that impressionistic setting by William McCreary, a framework of stained beams, is artfully primitive early American in pretending to be four varied locales in Salem of 1692.

So much for witch hunting in the Euclid-77th Play House, save an urgent, SEE IT!

"Just as we like it."

They built a little Globe Theatre for Shakespeare plays. The Great Lakes Exposition was about progress, about the future, about the world - it also had fan dancers and other kinks for daddy - and someone felt that Shakespeare had to be involved. That makes me happy.

About Some Players Who Give Us Shakespeare Just As We Like It
By Arthur Spaeth
The Cleveland News - July 2, 1936

We chose to imagine the Great Shakespeare’s spook being a bit puzzled and then downright worried through the centuries since his demise as the literati has carried on a campaign of refined ballyhoo, that has stuck the Bard up on a pedestal far from the common people.

But this brave little Globe theater company is doing its darndest to bring him back down to you and me - and doing it darned well.

Here’s comedy with true burlesque flavor. It’s lusty, ribald, pants-kicking comedy. And it’s played as Shakespeare wrote and directed it.

***
Visiting the Old Globe ...
By W. Ward Marsh
The Plain Dealer - July 3, 1936

“Julius Caesar” seems to lend itself better to the abbreviated production of the Globe than the other plays I have seen. The whole kernel of the play is present, and it moves swiftly and logically with no appearent loss in power trough the reduction of characters, words and scenes. The three phases of Caesar’s story life, death, burial, make for stirring melodrama in the Globe, and the great speeches, the spurring by Cassius, the apologies of Brutus, and the oration of Antony, are here and are delivered with power and fire.

I felt that Director Stevens had done remarkable work with the mob scenes. Although the “mobs” were not large, they were expertly coached and gave this production a good deal of its power and stirring qualities.

More than ever now do I urge a visit to the Old Globe.

***
Shakespeare In Quick Time Wins At Expo
By Jospehine Robertson
The Plain Dealer - July 17, 1936

Nearly 1,000 of the 25,975 persons attending the Great Lakes Exposition stopped in the Old Globe Theatre for a dose of synthetic culture.

There was plenty of slapstick and not a dull split second. You just started to laugh at Nick Bottom “roaring like any sucking dove” when he was squinting through Wall’s two fingers saying “I can hear my Thisbe’s face,” and Wall and the lovers fell in a heap and the lion had lost its tail.

***
Shakespeare Streamlined (editorial)
The Plain Dealer - July 18, 1936

The Shakespeare output in its formidable entirety has become forbiddingly synonymous with the obscure, the labored, the stilted, the rhetorical, the ponderous. All that, it nows appears, is out so far as interpretations given at the exposition are concerned. One result is that a considerable number of adults seem to enjoy taking their Shakespeare for its own sake rather than spend their time and money throwing baseballs at dolls.

***
Streamlined Shakespeare (feature article)
The Plain Dealer - September 13, 1936

College dramatics teacher and Chicago business man speed famous plays for the entertainment of masses.

The piper strikes up “Oranges and Lemons” on her recorder. Lads and lassies move to and fro in rustic weaving. Trumpeters sound a fanfare as Queen Elizabeth descends from her dias, escorted by her beefeaters, disappears into the theater. Once again the Town Crier waves a bell and hat in a flourish of red and green. And the play begins.

Despite rival attractions, peep shows and scantily clad dancing girls, Shakespeare is proving popular with the masses.

The Negro Theatre Unit presents "Macbeth" (1936)

The Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project featured a “Contemporary” branch and a “Classical” branch. Inarguably the greatest success of the Classical branch was its production of Macbeth, commonly referred to as “Voodoo” Macbeth.

This production, featuring an all-African-American cast, was directed by Orson Welles, and set his national career as a stage director. Citizen Kane still five years away. Welles was already a known star as a voice for radio, having established himself as the original Shadow. When Macbeth debuted on April 14, Welles was 20 years-old.

In 1937 Welles would direct what should be referred to as “Fascist” Julius Caesar, creating a Mussolini-type Caesar in a modern-dress production that starred himself as Brutus. For this work, his thinking went that as long as the task at hand were to create a large-scale Shakespearean drama featuring an all-black cast, it would be more acceptable to a modern audience to see this supernatural, blood-soaked tragedy set in a place like Haiti rather than Scotland. The actual setting is undefined, but the design strongly suggests the Caribbean.

There was controversy during the rehearsal process, and picketing. Many in the African-American community feared this would be a burlesque of some kind. When the production opened, and all could see that it was by all modern measure a legitimate presentation of Shakespeare’s work, and grand and exceptional, such criticism disappeared.

Hecate’s role, often cut from modern productions, was expanded. He was a cast as a large man with a whip, and delivers the final line of the production - The charm’s wound up. (In Shakespeare’s text, from Act I.) Professional African drummers were employed, but only five of the cast of over 100 were professionally experienced actors. However, this was often the case for Federal Theater Project productions.

Following a highly successful run in New York, the play went on tour. Referred to in an advance piece in the Plain Dealer as “bizarre” the show came to Cleveland in Fall, 1936.

Federal Theatre E. 9 & Prospect
NOW! New York’s Triumph now Cleveland’s Sensational Hit!
William Shakespeare’s MACBETH
(Original All-Colored Cast of 150)
Directed by Orson Welles
“Here is something bizarre, breath-takingly colorful and startling”
- Arthur Spaeth, Cleveland News
Eve 8:30 - Sat. Mat. 2:30
$1.00 - 75¢ - 50¢ - 25¢ Plus Tax
WPA Federal Theatre Project
(Oct. 1, 1936 - Cleveland News advertisement)

Review by William McDermott in the Plain Dealer

Source: Wikipedia, Cleveland News, The Plain Dealer