MET’s The Crucible is a good reminder of what’s at stake

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about The Crucible is this: Decades after the McCarthyism that inspired it, the play — an Arthur Miller witch-hunt drama that’s ingrained in our culture — remains absorbing. Its four long scenes start slowly but surge, each resolving ideas and action in dramatic situations no less arresting than back when the world was black and white.

The remarkable thing about Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, meanwhile, is this: In the three years since its first show, it has grown from a catch-as-catch-can crew scrambling for a performance space into an established company that’s ambitious (and well-financed) enough to put on not only The Crucible — with its 20 speaking parts, three-hour running time and costly Puritan costumes — but also, in repertory with it, Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning. Pairing Miller’s American classic with Fry’s immolation farce (though I complained about the latter play) takes the kind of daring this town needs more of. The Kansas City Actors Theatre has distinguished itself by grabbing at more than might be advisable, and the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, like China, at last seems to be stirring. The result is that 2008 has been offering more plays worth adult consideration than Kansas City has seen in years.

Better still, this Crucible is pretty good — it’s even better if you haven’t seen it before. With the same set and much of the same cast in both plays, that catch-as-catch-can feel remains. But because of Miller’s potent storytelling, I quickly forgot the other play. Instead, I sank happily into director Karen Paisley’s atmospheric production, especially enjoying her spare and shadowed 17th-century Salem, Massachusetts. Between the harsh exposed wood of Paisley’s set and the often gloomy lighting, this production evokes the darkness of the pre-electric world. That darkness thickens as the town works up into its panic, and we can sense some trace element of the primal fears that led to accusations of witchery.

The story, for anyone who didn’t study it in school: After Abigail Williams and her young friends are discovered dancing nude in the forest with the South American slave Tituba, the daughter of Salem’s Reverend Parris falls ill. The town, which has suffered in recent years, suspects witchcraft. Abigail — who harbors a most un-Puritan love for John Proctor, a married farmer — soon confirms this with tears and visions. A magistrate arrives, names are named, citizens are condemned; it’s all so involving, audiences don’t have to concern themselves with the fact that it’s a metaphor.

John Robert Paisley is fine as Proctor, the most sensible man in Salem, although he’s too easygoing to sell his early bursts of rage; his later ones shake the rafters. As the conflicted Reverend Hale, Sam Wright starts out with a smooth command and certainty that corrode as the character dares to acknowledge that the court is condemning innocents. It’s an estimable performance — each new uncertainty flickers painfully across his face. Tanya Barber is touchingly affectless as Proctor’s wife, and I also liked Allan L. Boardman, who brings a prickly sense of majesty to the role of Danforth the judge. And Natalie Liccardello, as Abigail, flutters sweetly, flirts wickedly and wails to open the gates of Hell.

While the principals are good, there’s some weakness on the bench. That’s bound to happen in a show that puts pros and non-pros together with such tricky material. In early scenes, when the stage is packed, some actors fidget distractingly as they wait for their next line. Individually, Abigail’s young friends can grate; when they start seeing devils or chanting in court in half-sung unison, they pull it off under Paisley’s direction. Some small moments suffer, but the big ones come through.

As at most MET shows, the crowd sits on re-purposed church pews. That’s apropriate here — the hard wood and minor discomfort seem to be in the Puritan spirit. It’s also characteristic of a MET tendency that’s starting to make me wary: The company shows a reverence that might be limiting. Productions like this and last year’s A Streetcar Named Desire are certainly edifying, and I’m thankful to have seen them. But I’m left afterward with faint memories of the productions themselves (though with a greater appreciation of the playwrights). Both shows, once mounted, were sturdy and affecting but were presented with little of the fresh insight that marks an essential revival.

This complaint might be unfair. The Crucible reminds us of a time when playwrights were, as Shelley said of poets, “the unacknowledged legislators of the world” — a time when Miller summoned the power to fundamentally alter this country’s thinking. Exiting the theater after I’d applauded MET’s opening night, I had to wonder: Were we moved more by the play in general, by this production in particular, or just by the idea that serious art once so affected this world?

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