The Crucible | Review of The Crucible

In the following review which originally appeared in The New York Times on January 23, 1953, Brooks Atkinson outlines the plot of The Crucible, which he calls a "powerful play." Comparing it to Miller's Death of a Salesman, Atkinson argues that The Crucible "stands second . . . as a work of art,'' and maintains: "By the standards of Death of a Salesman, there is too much excitement and not enough emotion in The Crucible.''

Arthur Miller has written another powerful play, The Crucible, it is called, and it opened at the Martin Beck last evening in an equally powerful performance. Riffling back the pages of American history, he has written the drama of the witch trials and hangings in Salem in 1692. Neither Mr. Miller nor his audiences are unaware of certain similarities between the perversions of justice then and today.

But Mr. Miller is not pleading a cause in dramatic form. For The Crucible, despite its current implications, is a self-contained play about a terrible period in...

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