Miller’s Crossing

Director Dan Lemieux’s Fullerton College staging of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” strives to frame the play’s Salem witch trial action within history and the near-future. While it’s always refreshing to see a director rethink a play within a new frame, you have to wonder why Lemieux chose this one.

First, there’s the offstage frame of a year 2000 New Year’s Eve party, with celebrators just off to the sides, a mute Greek chorus.

Then there’s the onstage, between-scenes array of projected images (designed by Robert Jensen) of victims of persecution, from Jews in the Holocaust to Gulag prisoners. The 20th century, this suggests, has merely recycled--in more violent form--the Salem persecution depicted in Miller’s play.

The problem is that this merely states the obvious, falling into the very trap Miller’s artistry avoids. Miller obliquely makes his political points as a critique of the 1950s McCarthy Communist witch-hunt hearings. The projected slides are anything but oblique.

The framing device thus overwhelms the earnest but intimidated student cast, which can be difficult to hear from the back of the Campus Theatre.

As Miller’s put-upon but flawed hero John Proctor, Jonathon Petersen stokes only a fraction of an emotional fire, being a small spark rather than a human inferno.

Brianne Gates’ Abigail is the one you love to hate, and Sarah Dunkerly is picture-perfect as wavering Mary Warren. But Addison K. Glines’ Judge Hawthorne has the bad habit of screeching as he angers, and Kimberly Simpson’s Elizabeth Proctor is too subdued, missing the character’s coldness, then her eventual explosion of emotion.

BE THERE

“The Crucible,” Fullerton College Campus Theatre, 321 E. Chapman Ave. 8 p.m. today-Saturday. $9-$10. Ends Saturday. (714) 871-8101. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.