“The Crucible” at the Globe Theatre

Neil Dowden on the South Bank
28 May 2025

Shakespeare’s Globe has successfully staged a couple of classic modern dramas – Ibsen’s Ghosts and Chekhov’s Three Sisters – in their indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse during the last two winters. Now for the first time a modern classic – Arthur Miller’s The Crucible – is being performed in the outdoor Globe Theatre as part of their summer season. Ola Ince’s traditional production may not break any new ground or make the same claustrophobic impact that other revivals have. But it’s a powerfully direct account of the 1953 drama about the 1690s Salem witch trials that makes very good use of the whole auditorium.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.

The scene is set before the action actually begins, as members of the Massachusetts Puritan settlement are seen attending to their daily working and domestic tasks as the audience file in. There is an impressive amount of additional wood in Amelia Jane Hankin’s splendid design that enhances “this wooden O”. An additional balcony in front of the existing one is accessed by a staircase, kindling in crates lies at the foot of the chipboard-clad pillars like chimneys and old-style wooden furniture is lifted on and off stage, while high prairie grass protrudes upstairs in the gallery and in front of the stalls. Platforms in the yard are initially topped with earth to suggest farming activity and later used for the judges’ bench during the trials.

Salem is shown to be a tightknit community facing outside threats from Native Americans in the ongoing conflict sparked by European colonization of their territories, whose repressive religious governance inspires a mass hysteria against witches that spreads like wildfire and destroys the social fabric. Miller of course wrote the play at a time during the Cold War when the United States – and he personally – was impacted by an anti-communist paranoia that had devastating effects on many people. This parallel has receded but it’s not much of a stretch to relate Ince’s full-period revival to any modern situation where an authoritarian, misogynistic regime manipulates conspiracy theories to enforce its tight grip on individual freedoms.

The dense text and considerable length of the play – three hours including the interval here – make it a demanding watch, but Ince’s lucid production gives full weight not just to the issues but to the human drama involved. The strained marriage between Elizabeth and John Proctor – whose affair with their maid Abigail Williams provokes her dismissal and subsequent revenge as she becomes the ringleader of the girls accusing (mainly) women of dabbling in witchcraft – is credibly portrayed. And their later loving reconciliation under pressure of the trials is movingly expressed.

We see how fear of being punished for transgressing Salem’s severe moral code leads the girls to point the finger at others to deflect their own sinful behaviour, while other baseless charges are motivated by petty grievances over land and livestock disputes with neighbours. And once the state has become involved in prosecuting and executing alleged witches there is no going back, as questioning those court decisions is regarded as tantamount to rebellion. The Devil is indeed abroad but only in the way innocent people are victimized.

Hannah Saxby as Abigail.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner.

There is tension in the air from the off as the hunched Reverend Parris sits with a Bible by his young niece Betty lying seemingly unconscious on a bed and others gather around as rumours of witchcraft abound, while we glimpse a church congregation praying beyond the open doors at the back. After the scholarly Reverend Hale arrives armed with a load of books which he claims are “weighted with authority” there is a momentary calm, but this disappears when Betty jumps out of bed and tries to “fly” leading to her exorcism and the first compulsive accusations. The kindling has been lit.

We later see the girls briefly imprisoned behind the railings of the top balcony before they become officials of the court, while their sudden disturbing paroxysms as if possessed to divert suspicion in court are brilliantly choreographed by movement director Ebony Molina. There isn’t the same sense of choral unity in the girls as there was in Lyndsey Turner’s production of The Crucible at the National Theatre in 2022, but there is a spine-tingling moment when they all come downstage to sing a hymn in plainsong. The superb music by Renell Shaw is used sparingly but tellingly, including the chiming of a bell when another victim is accused or dies. There is also use of a handpan in suspenseful moments such as Proctor struggling to remember all of the Ten Commandments.

The cast is excellent, speaking clearly in British accents as would have been the case in seventeenth-century America. Gavin Drea passionately conveys the flawed John Proctor’s guilt over his adultery but also his frustration that his wife won’t accept his repentance, while his initial reluctance to become involved in court proceedings gives way to a courageous intervention and a refusal to name names as he finds his “goodness”. Phoebe Pryce’s Elizabeth stands up for her own sense of righteousness while also accepting her own shortcomings as she finds a new warmth in her relationship with her husband. Hannah Saxby’s manipulative Abigail has an almost stalker-like fixation on Proctor, with a palpable sexual frisson between them, though we realize her orphaned servant status makes her vulnerable. We also understand how the Proctors’ new maid Mary Warren (Bethany Wooding) is easily swayed in her allegiances.

Steve Furst relays both the religious narrow-mindedness and petty self-centredness of Parris, Jo Stone-Fewings shows how Hale’s doubts grow about the morality of the witch-hunt and the legitimacy of the court, and Gareth Snook gives Deputy Governor Danforth an intimidating authority. Joanne Haworth is the saintly, common-sensical Rebecca Nurse and Howard Ward the argumentative but stalwart Giles Corey, who both stand up for simple human decency and refuse to bow their heads to persecution.