The Crucible
Closed 2h 45m
The Crucible
79%
79%
(843 Ratings)
Positive
80%
Mixed
15%
Negative
5%
Members say
Great acting, Absorbing, Intense, Thought-provoking, Great staging

About the Show

Arthur Miller’s 'The Crucible' returns to Broadway in a new production directed by acclaimed Belgian director Ivo van Hove, who has an inventive take on this timeless parable of morality and intolerance.

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Critic Reviews (49)

The New York Times
March 31st, 2016

"The director Ivo van Hove and a dazzling international cast have plumbed the raw terror in Arthur Miller’s 'The Crucible'. And an endlessly revived historical drama from 1953 suddenly feels like the freshest, scariest play in town...Mr. van Hove knew exactly what he was doing here. All the members of his large ensemble find revealing new shapes within archetypes and insist that we grasp and even sympathize with their characters’ perspectives."
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Time Out New York
March 31st, 2016

"Van Hove’s electrifying and audacious staging achieves what more revivals should: It makes old work seem new, blows away the dust and exposes caulked cracks...The production avoids overt reference to contemporary headlines, but resonances with today's religious hypocrisy and xenophobia are hard to ignore...Miller’s masterpiece, still a model of post-Ibsenite drama, holds up...'The Crucible' has to be seen—even if not every flourish works...Still, the cast is ridiculously stuffed with talent."
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New York Magazine / Vulture
March 31st, 2016

"Gripping, emotional revival...If van Hove’s directorial choices generally support and enliven the text, and force us to see it fresh, it’s not because he has abandoned his avant-garde armamentarium...I think the mistake teachers often make about 'The Crucible' is that they read it like a novel, and sometimes it’s staged that way. Van Hove sweeps all that away, letting us feel more strongly the role the play’s overwhelming structural brilliance plays in locking us down."
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The Wall Street Journal
March 31st, 2016

"It’s amazing how much damage Ivo van Hove, the most pretentious stage director of our time, can do to a good play...He’s attacked 'The Crucible' with a steamroller, turning Miller’s play into a slow-moving study in extreme tedium. Directorial miscalculations abound...To do such a play in modern dress is to take its already over-obvious symbolism and make it clownishly blatant...Van Hove’s staging of the first act is so unvaried in pace that he manages to make it boring."
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Deadline
March 31st, 2016

"Ivo van Hove’s lucid and often mesmerizing production honors all of those big factors without overwhelming us—unless it’s by the sheer impact of a company so right in nearly every detail, from the major roles to those less so...I think the impact must be quite similar to that felt by theatergoers 63 years ago...The set is the production’s major misstep, a serious one...I have often found his work pretentious and misguided. Not here...This is a definitive production."
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New York Daily News
March 31st, 2016

"Good things come to those who wait. Remember that. Because it takes a long time for Broadway’s star-studded revival of Arthur Miller’s 'The Crucible' to cast a spell. In the end, it does. The final 15 minutes of this play, set amid the Salem witch trials, are built to be shattering and heart-wrenching...As for the preceding 135 minutes — not so much. The drama is packed with ideas about truth and power. But as played here, it’s high on talk, but stubbornly low on impact."
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Variety
March 31st, 2016

"There’s bound to be head-scratching over Ivo van Hove’s peculiar Broadway production of 'The Crucible'...The ensemble is superb, and the play sustains its power to shock and thrill. But the directorial concept is baffling...It’s too big, too complex, too philosophical to deconstruct and reduce to its 'essence'...Rather than suggesting a universal time frame, this lack of specificity tells us we’re nowhere.”
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The Hollywood Reporter
March 31st, 2016

"Almost operatic in their intensity, van Hove's productions are designed to leave audiences agitated and uncomfortable, which is notably the case with this distressing drama, with its steadily amplified sense of horror and indignation...Mesmerizingly acted...The production presents a chilling account of the institutional arrogance and ignorance that are a threat to civil liberties in any age, particularly when the dividing lines separating politics, religion and the judiciary become blurred."
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