6 - Conscience and community in An Enemy of the People and The Crucible

Summary

“It’s all clear to me now, finally at this late hour. They had their script. I had mine. Theirs: ‘Confess, lie, and you’ll live.’”

Tema Nason, Ethel [Rosenberg]: The Fictional Autobiography (1990)

When the Wooster Group, one of the more controversial of the experimental theatrical troupes active during the 1970s and 1980s, incorporated segments of The Crucible (1953) into their performance piece entitled LSD (… Just the High Points …) (1984), Arthur Miller’s threat of legal action eventually forced the project to be withdrawn from the stage. Even though the excerpts included from Miller’s work were reduced first from forty-five minutes to twenty-five minutes and then later to ten minutes – and that recited virtually in gibberish – the dramatist objected on the grounds that such a treatment might be regarded as a parody, which violated his initial intention, rather than an homage, and so might somehow preclude a serious New York revival of his play. Not only does Miller’s action provide a fascinating case study in the ongoing debate over who “owns” or maintains interpretive authority over the written text when it becomes a performance text – the author or the director – it also evidences what might seem a peculiar paradox. As David Savran notes, “By insisting on his own interpretation, Miller has, ironically, aligned himself with the very forces that The Crucible condemns, those authorities who exercise their power arrogantly and arbitrarily to ensure their own continued political and cultural dominion.”