Grec 2016: Les bruixes de Salem

Author: Arthur Miller. Catalan translation: Eduardo Mendoza. Director: Andrés Lima. Cast: Lluís Homar, Borja Espinosa, Nora Navas, Nausicaa Bonnín, Albert Prat, Carles Martínez, Míriam Alemany, Carme Sansa, Miquel Gelabert, Anna Moliner, Marta Closas, Joana Vilapuig, Núria González and Yolanda Sey.

Last year marked 100 years since the birth of Arthur Miller, a playwright whose work is known for its strong social and political engagement, a critical spirit that, in 'The Crucible' (Les Bruixes de Salem), alludes to an episode of collective hysteria that took place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. A small rural community governed by strict religious rules and norms of behaviour was shaken by a rumour: that one of the local girls had been the victim of a curse. The suspicion that there were witches in the community and disputes between settlers over the ownership of land together caused some 25 people, most of them women, to be cruelly sentenced to death. The oppressive, irrational atmosphere of Salem is created as a reflection of the environment that existed in the USA in the 1950s, during McCarthyism, a witch-hunt that claimed Miller himself as one of its victims. In fact, in 1957, the playwright was convicted of contempt by US Congress for refusing to disclose the names of alleged American communists, a sentence that was finally overturned.