Miller's tale.

Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard

IN THE aftermath of Sept. 11, Arthur Miller's historical drama "The Crucible" seems especially relevant to Lane Community College director Patrick Torelle.

"Who knew last year, when we chose this play, we'd be coming into an era of great fear?" Torelle says. "This play allows us to look at the genesis of hysteria and how easily we are lured into it."

Miller wrote his penetrating drama in 1958 about the Salem, Mass., witch trials as an indictment of the anti-Communist mania fomented by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The parallels are many between the hysteria that permeated the New England colonies in 1692 and the unrelenting search for subversives in the 1950s.

Miller was especially hot on the subject after he was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956. The following year, he was found in contempt of Congress for refusing to identify individuals at Communist-organized meetings.

Although his conviction was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals, the incident scared Miller into crafting his play.

In a prologue, he notes that the trials arose from an odd moral system that promoted interference in others' affairs and a repressive code of conduct that frowned on any diversion from norms of behavior.

In his production, opening Friday in the LCC Performance Hall, Torelle is emphasizing the hysteria inherent in the situation.

"This whole society was ready for something like this to happen,' Torelle says. `The fear of witchcraft had been building; if it hadn't happened in Salem, it probably would have happened somewhere else.

`They feared that the devil was all around them. He's there in the forest. He's there in our living rooms, trying to work on us constantly. So you always had to be looking over your shoulder."

The townspeople began to harbor suspicions about each other. Rumor and gossip were rampant.

"With those kind of ideas, there's no stopping it," Torelle says. "Sooner or later, something's going to happen. It got out of hand."

Torelle believes this sort of moral scapegoating has happened many times throughout history.

"Certainly, we're in danger of it right now. All we have to do is simply identify who the bad guys are. Once we've done that, we've taken care of everything.

`We just have to kill them, then our problems will be solved."

To focus the audience's attention on "the essence of the play," Torelle is using a skeletal set, dominated by a large crucible. Usually used in mining, fusing or calcining ores and metals, a crucible is made of a substance that can resist intense heat.

Over the years, the term has come to mean any severe trial.

"It's a place where one has to look at what one is made of," Torelle says.

A Puritan house will be represented by its framework, and the costumes will be "representative" of Puritan clothing.

"This is like the kind of thing they used to do in the Middle Ages when they took plays from town to town on carts," Torelle says. "That's more of what we've been up to in this production."

Besides Torelle, the production staff includes Skip Hubbard, scenic and lighting designer; James McConkey, technical director; Sue Surdam Bean, costume designer, assisted by Nancy Hunt; Mona Jones, choreographer; Saal McGirr, composer; Shoshannah Crow, assistant director; Tony Masoner, properties manager; and Brian Peterson, stage manager, assisted by Marc Carpenter.

The large cast includes Myeeshah Madrigale (Tituba), Jessica Vanrossem (Abigail Williams), Kacy Cullen (Mary Warren), Rob Aley (Proctor), Katherine Lewis (Elizabeth Proctor), Carson Shelton (Mercy Lewis), Kelly Kern-Craft (Ruth Putnam), Jenny Nissel (Betty Parris), Amy Bunker (Susanna Walcott), Valerya Zeleny (Joanna Preston), Steve Mandell (Parris), Penelope Merritt (Ann Putnum), Larry Maltz (Thomas Putnam), Anne Kern (Rebecca Nurse), Jason Perkins (Mr. Hale), Bob Glasser (Giles Corey), Nick Poublon (Ezekiel Cheever), Chris Pinto (Danforth), Chad De Kay (Hathorne) and Julia Kumle (understudy).

"These (characters) are smart people," Torelle says. "They know better. You ask yourself, `How in the world could they believe in things that are clearly not true?' '

Arts reporter Fred Crafts can be reached by phone at 338-2575 and by e-mail at [e-mail].

THE CRUCIBLE

WHAT: Arthur Miller's drama about the Puritan witchcraft purge in old Salem, Mass.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays from April 19 through May 4; 2 p.m. April 28

WHERE: Lane Community College Performance Hall, 4000 E. 30th Ave.

HOW MUCH: $10 for adults and $8 for students through the LCC box office (463-5202) and the Erb Memorial Union (346-4363) at the University of Oregon 

CAPTION(S):

Abigail Williams (Jessica Vanrossem, left) comforts Mary Warren (Kacy Cullen) as the coven paws at them in "The Crucible." A chained and imprisoned Tituba (Myeeshah Madrigale) cries out in Lane Community College's production of Arthur Miller's classic parable.