In Guthrie's 'Crucible,' the horror lies in human nature

The woods are never far away in Joe Dowling's staging of "The Crucible," which opened Friday at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

Arthur Miller's play about the Salem witch trials of 1692 is also about a society on the edge of wilderness. The tree line — beyond which lurk the unknown dangers of an unsettled continent — is visible in every scene.

In fact, the first scene begins among the trees, as a group of Salem girls cavort at night in a wooded grove. The leafless trunks levitate into the air and remain suspended there throughout the play, as if to suggest that this society's tenuous hold on civilization might be lost at any moment.

Yet there is no presence in the woods as sinister as civilization itself. The real threat emanates not from the wilderness but from those who have come to tame it — from human nature at its worst.

Caught in the scandalous act of dancing in the woods, the village girls seek shelter in the superstitions of Salem's establishment, a society of Puritans eager to blame the devil for every misfortune. Invoking the name of Lucifer catapults the girls into a kind of witness protection program. To escape punishment, they need only accuse other people of consorting with the devil — and because the girls' word alone is enough to condemn anyone, no one is safe.

The only route to survival for the accused, in turn, is to accuse somebody else. Those willing to name names can live. Those who aren't willing must hang. The unscrupulous flourish, and the principled perish.

Miller wrote "The Crucible" in 1952, when a similar dynamic was at work in Sen. Joe McCarthy's hunt for Communists in Washington. Miller had not yet been called to testify, although his time would come.

When that time comes for John Proctor in "The Crucible," the hero of the play names no one in particular but finds enough blame to go around. "We are what we always were," he seethes, "but naked now."

Erik Heger offers a Proctor of youthful energy, although seemingly made of such moral granite that it's hard to imagine his having an affair with Abigail Williams (Chloe Armao), the chief accuser among the girls. That's an important bit of back story, because Abigail's subsequent spurning by Proctor provides the motivation for her denunciation of Proctor's wife, Elizabeth (Michelle O'Neill).

Among other fine performances — like Stephen Yoakam's Deputy-Governor Danforth, Peter Michael Goetz's Giles Corey and Bill McCallum's Rev. Parris — is a particularly adept turn by Ashley Rose Montondo as Mary Warren. She comes close to overplaying her role as accuser-turned-victim-turned-accuser, but never quite crosses the line. Instead, her face shows the abject terror of someone who no longer knows which lie might her keep her neck out of the noose.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking line of this sorrowful play comes from Wendy Lehr as the saintly Rebecca Nurse, who stumbles on her way to the gallows. She apologizes: "I have not had my breakfast."

It's those human touches that give this story its power and its horror. If it were only about Salem, or McCarthyism, "The Crucible" might seem dated and irrelevant. Instead, it's about something timeless: The ease with which we betray each other, even the best among us; and our willingness to believe whatever orthodoxy will supposedly keep us safe.

"The Crucible" runs through May 24.