Messages of Arthur Miller's Play "The Crucible"

When Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill) was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he sometimes recited the following apothegm as illustrative of the political difficulties of finding new sources of federal revenue.

"Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree."

In that instance of wishful thinking, outsiders could somehow be the solution to our problems. But it is usually the reverse: outsiders, or external forces, are somehow to blame.

At the moment, for instance, some see immigrants as main reason the American Dream seems increasingly out of reach. That's despite considerable evidence that immigrants have been responsible for far more of America's accomplishments than for the country's failures.

I mention this because I just saw a revival of Arthur Miller's most-performed pay, "The Crucible" on Broadway staring, among others, Saoise Ronan of "Brooklyn" fame.

Miller wrote the play, about the 1692-93 Salem witch trials, in 1953 as an allegory of McCarthyism, an anti-communist witch hunt then in full flood. Intellectuals, particularly in the performing arts, were a prominent target and, indeed, Miller himself was eventually called up before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). While he told the panel about his own former leftist activities, he refused to name others who had been involved and was convicted of contempt of Congress, a conviction that was overturned a couple of years later.

Broadway and ballet choreographer Jerome Robbins ("West Side Story"), called before HUAC in 1950, had likewise initially refused to name names -- for three years in fact -- but when his homosexuality appeared at risk of public disclosure, he reversed course and named several persons -- a playwright, a filmmaker, a dance critic and others. As a result, he wasn't blacklisted and his career continued unfettered.

(The New York City Ballet is currently performing an "All Robbins" program that includes the shorter ballet version of "West Side Story").

I mention these incidents for a couple of reasons.

First, one of the themes of "The Crucible" is that in witch-hunt ridden Massachusetts, it was often necessary to publically condemn the alleged wrongdoings of others to protect one's own standing in society. Even when one believes such demands are wrong, they can be difficult to resist when one is personally compromised.

Thus Robbins felt forced to cave in because his behavior was at odds with prevailing attitudes toward homosexuality. And in Miller's play, the chief protagonist, a farmer named John Proctor, faces problems resisting demands he believes to be wrong because he has had an affair with his family's young female servant, Abigail Williams (played by Ms. Ronan in the current Broadway production).

Second, demands that people name names in order to save themselves are still very much with us: to wit, the CIA's waterboarding of war-against-terrorism prisoners.

In both cases, there are strong incentives to say things that are untrue.

While convoluted to the point of being somewhat confusing at times, Miller's play still has a relevant message to deliver.

(By the way, if you haven't seem the film "Brooklyn," or better yet, read the book, I highly recommend both of them.)