Filippo Dini directs and performs one of the most ferocious and critical works about American society written by Arthur Miller: The crucible. Written in 1952, during the period of McCarthyism, it stages the tragic dementia of the time through the witch-hunt that gripped the city of Salem in 1692.
“Everything began – explained Dini – with the strange behaviour of a couple of adolescents, who were probably simply manifesting the difficulty that so many of their peers had in overcoming that terrible age; their doctors, unable to find any scientific reason for their bizarre behaviour, passed the problem on to the authorities, the community, and the church. Accused of being possessed, the girls feel under pressure to accuse others of having bewitched them and, in a crescendo of folly and fear, 144 people were tried, with 19 of them being hung. Miller wrote this drama during the tragic period of McCarthyism, when he and other artists were “placed under observation” by the Committee on Un-American activities. The most commonly used weapon during this period was informing; those who did not provide names of other presumed communist sympathisers were accused of contempt, marking the end of their career. The transposition of this story over that of Salem is a metaphor for the situation experienced in person by the writer, and we in turn use it to examine our present time”.