The Crucible NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (845)
See it if you're a fan of directors overdone and under-thought take on a classic you know well to spend the entire time going "huh what?"
Don't see it if you don't want the entire point and thesis of a play to be undermined. Or if bad accents bother you.
See it if you want to see a director overplay his hand: everything is set at the highest level of intensity and expression.
Don't see it if I rarely walk out of a play, did on this. Grey school room setting for all locations, plus smoke as in Ivo van Hove's VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE.
See it if Yod don't mind talky pseudo intellectual drama pretentiously staged in an odd way
Don't see it if Dont like the work of the overated and pretentious staging of Ivo Van Hov
See it if You like CONCEPT shows over substance.
Don't see it if You're a traditionalist and/or are looking for an emotionally relevant piece rather than anachronistic directorial wank.
See it if You think The Crucible needs “updating”.
Don't see it if If a production that trivializes a great work to no purpose or effect will bore, annoy or distress you.
See it if You have seen other Ivan van hoe shows and enjoyed them
Don't see it if You have any respect for Arthur Miller
See it if You want great acting in a wonderful play destroyed by an egotistical director who thinks you are not smart enough to think for yourself
Don't see it if you know the show and what Arthur Miller was trying to convey to his audience
See it if An old tale about witch craft
Don't see it if It was slow and a bit boring.
Critic Reviews (49)
"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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"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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"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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"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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"The play’s easy-to-understand themes of mob mentality and mass hysteria have made it Miller’s most produced work, yet the piece is somewhat flat...Thus the prospect of maestro Belgian director Ivo van Hove putting his inimitable stamp on Miller’s work is too tantalizing to resist. Even if the results are mixed...Van Hove has a knack for stagecraft, that’s for sure...Van Hove’s bold, electric production doesn’t quite juice Miller’s morality play with the ambiguity it needs to be truly tragic."
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"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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"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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"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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