The Crucible **

I am not a great admirer of this Arthur Miller play based on the Salem witch trials of 1692-93. While the witch hunt theme is just as resonant today as it was during the McCarthy era when it was written, the play seems to me too long, too wordy and too didactic. It has too many characters to flesh out sufficiently to be more than embodiments of points of view. Nevertheless, the stellar casting and my curiosity to see how hotshot director Ivo van Hove would impose his stamp on the material led me to buy a ticket. While I had some reservations about van Hove’s take on View from the Bridge, I did find it compelling and unified. Not so with The Crucible. Setting it in modern dress (costumed by Wojciech Dziedzic) didn’t bother me, but making the set (by Jan Versweyveld) a schoolroom featuring a giant blackboard and dressing the girls in school uniforms seemed pointless. Although he scrupulously follows Miller’s text, van Hove interpolates a couple of very brief nonverbal non-Miller scenes at the beginning and end of the first act. It disturbs me that one of them (and another scene later) virtually eliminates any ambiguity we should feel about whether witchcraft was actually taking place. And then there’s that strange four-footed visitor at the beginning of Act Three. Not even the curtain call escapes van Hove’s tinkering. As for the actors, it’s a mixed bag. The casting is nontraditional and the accents vary widely. Of the four stars, Sophie Okonedo as Elizabeth Proctor comes across the best by far. The role of John Proctor does not seem a natural fit for Ben Whishaw, but he handles it rather well. Ciaran Hinds is adequate but unmemorable as Deputy Governor Danforth. As Abigail Williams, Saoirse Ronan disappoints; her stage presence falls short of the powerful impression she makes onscreen. Jason Butler Harner is strong as Reverend Parris, as are Brenda Wehle as Rebecca Nurse and Jim Norton as Giles Corey. Tavi Gevinson’s Mary Warren seems too young. While I have often enjoyed the music of Philip Glass, I found his score, most of which consisted of a relentless background drone, a distraction rather than an enhancement. Running time: two hours 50 minutes.

A View from the Bridge ***

I wonder how I would have reacted to the current Broadway production of this Arthur Miller classic had I not known that this Young Vic import won three Oliviers — best actor for Mark Strong, best director for Ivo van Hove, and best play revival. Perhaps this foreknowledge raised my expectations too high. I will grant that this production has many strengths, foremost among them a riveting performance by Strong as Eddie Carbone. Of the other carryovers from the London cast, Nicola Walker skillfully underplays the role of Eddie’s wife Beatrice and Michael Gould is strong as Alfieri, the lawyer who serves as narrator and Greek chorus. On the other hand, I did not admire Phoebe Fox as Beatrice’s orphaned niece Catherine, for whom Eddie’s feelings are far more than fatherly. At a critical early point, her accent slipped from Brooklyn to Britain, which, for me at least, undermined much of what followed. Richard Hansell was fine in the smallish role of Louis, Eddie’s coworker. Of the newcomers to the cast, Michael Zegen is superb as Beatrice’s married cousin Marco, an illegal immigrant who made the difficult choice to leave wife and children behind in Sicily to save them from starvation. Russell Tovey is fine as Rodolpho, Marco’s blond younger brother, whose budding relationship with Beatrice leads to trouble. Admittedly it is very hard to imagine Tovey and Zegen as brothers. Thomas Michael Hammond has the tiny role of police officer. Jan Versweyveld’s strikingly simple set suggests a boxing ring, which is reinforced by the fact that several rows of theatergoers are seated on either side of the stage. The production is greatly enhanced by Tom Gibbons’s sophisticated sound design which makes effective use of snippets of sacred music, barely audible droning and a drum that punctuates the action. An D’Huys’s costume for Beatrice strains credibility. I can’t imagine that any overprotected girl in Red Hook in the 1950’s would be allowed to run around in a skirt that skimpy. It does fit with the crudely overdone first scene between Catherine and Eddie, during which she jumps on him and wraps her legs around him and he casually rests his hand on her thigh. No subtlety there. The choice to have the actors perform barefoot seemed an arbitrary touch to show the director’s cleverness. There is one long conversation scene that breaks the mounting tension. The final scene is a real audience grabber. Unfortunately it doesn’t make clear what actually transpired. For parallelism it is matched with an opening shower scene far from Miller territory. During  its best moments, the play is absolutely gripping. However, I felt that there are also flaws that detract from the general excellence. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes, no intermission.

Scenes from a Marriage ***

A clever friend referred to Ivo van Hove as a “destination director.” When he directs a play, the main attraction for many people is to see what he has done with the material rather than to see the work itself. Although his relationship with New York Theatre Workshop goes back to 1996, I have thus far avoided seeing any of his productions. Perhaps I have an innate suspicion of directors who think they know better than playwrights or filmmakers. In any case, his adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s superb television series and theatrical film was on my NYTW subscription, so I attended today’s preview. Van Hove’s first directorial stroke was to assign the roles of Johan and Marianne to three different couples portraying them at different stages of their marriage — Alex Hurt and Susannah Flood at the 10-year mark, Dallas Roberts and Roslyn Ruff a few years later, and Arliss Howard and Tina Benko at the moment they separate. Act One consists of three scenes roughly corresponding to the first three chapters of the filmed version. The gimmick is that the three scenes are performed simultaneously in three different areas of the theater. The audience moves from area to area in the order prescribed by the color of the wristband received upon arrival. I was in the pink group and saw the scenes in 3-1-2 time sequence. This was unfortunate because each scene had less impact than the preceding one. Howard and Benko are by far the strongest couple and, I thought, Roberts and Ruff are the least effective and have the weakest scene. Since the partitions are not soundproof, the audience hears snippets of dialogue and slamming doors from the other two scenes. No doubt this was a directorial choice. After a 30-minute intermission, the entire audience returns to the full theater, now configured in the round. Act Two follows the course of their post-separation relationship. Van Hove’s next distraction is that the opening scene of Act Two is played with all three couples on stage, sometimes speaking in unison, sometimes fugally, and sometimes changing partners in mid-sentence. Tripling the roles did not serve any purpose to me other than to demonstrate the director’s cleverness. The final two scenes are much more conventional and even touched by tenderness. The question I was left with at play’s end was “Why?” The film is regarded by many as a masterpiece and the acting by Erland Josephson and Liv Ulmann was incredible. Although much of the acting here is fine and the production is never boring, nothing approaches the film’s level, so I must again ask “Why mess with success?” The only answer I can think of is that the director wanted to. Running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes including 30-minute intermission.