Reviewing The Crucible and Its Author

In the various reviews of productions of The Crucible that we read, I was surprised by how directly the reviewers addressed how the events of the play related to the issues of the time regarding communism. Reading Walter Bernstein’s book gave me the impression that the government and the press made every effort to downplay the controversy surrounding the communist accusations: they promoted the message that communists were the enemy, and things like the blacklist were hardly public knowledge. However, the reviews are fairly open in addressing the fact that the literal witch-hunt taking place in the play could easily be compared to the witch-hunt taking place in America. One refers to how “Mr. Miller pursues his very clear contemporary parallel” and admits that many of the themes he presents in 17th century Salem are “an accurate reading of our own turbulent age” (190). Another goes further and asserts that “neither Mr. Miller nor his audiences are unaware of certain similarities between the perversions of justice then and today” (192). I was surprised that the reviewer was able to state so publicly that it was common belief that “perversions of justice” were taking place in regards to how the government was dealing with the communist threat. Perhaps I simply had the wrong impression of how the general public perceived and spoke of the way accused communists were treated at the time. Another possible explanation I thought of, however, was that the theater community was by a nature a more liberal one, and so those reviewing plays were more prone to speaking their minds.

The reviews and Miller’s own writings also made me curious about Miller’s experience with HUAC and the like. The review make it seem like it was no secret that Miller had some fairly liberal views, and the fact that the reviewers so readily considered his work an allegory for the trials of communism reinforces that. However, unlike the many people in the entertainment field named in Bernstein’s book, Miller was still working. Were his more radical beliefs overlooked because he was such a popular and talented playwright? If that is indeed what spared him, it is still somewhat surprising in comparison to the issue of banning Harry Potter: in that case, it seems that the huge popularity of those books were a huge factor in making them so controversial.