Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Crucible ed. by John H. Ferres (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 237 group of plays forms only a minor part of a syllabus for a course in Canadian literature or modern drama, and these prices will reduce the likelihood of new press's books being used. The columes are handsomely produced. Could the paperbacks be done more cheaply, while the quality (and the price) of the hard cover editions is retained? Could subsidies be found? Something must be done if new press is to take a giant step towards its goal of increasing the study and production of Canadian drama. Two further suggestions. New press would be wise to include some radio plays in its list. Radio plays were the foundation of modern drama in Canada, the source of its present development - and the medium is not dead yet. Besides, the plays in this group of volumes of New Drama go back to 1948, so the heyday of radio plays falls within its time span. And because Quebec is a vital center of modern Canadian drama, I would also like to see dual language editions of French Canadian plays rather than translations alone. Such editions would not bridge the gap between French and English Canada, but they might improve communications across it. ANN P. MESSENGER Simon Fraser University TWENTIETH CENTURY INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CRUCIBLE, edited by John H. Ferres. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972. vi & 122 pp. I have never liked those book reviews in which the critic, rather than evaluating the actual book before him, prefers to describe the one he would have liked to see written (or would have written himself) in the first place. Yet when the volume is an anthology or compilation, such an approach gains some legitimacy by the fact that a prime function of the book's editor has been to select - presumably from a larger body of available material - the contents that comprise the work as fanally published. In the case of Arthur Miller criticism, and, more narrowly, criticism specifically of The Crucible, that larger field of choice is necessarily restrictive. Given this limitation, John H. Ferres has made, on the whole, a judicious and intelligent selection - save in one vital area. What that area is and why its neglect seriously mars the overall unsefulness and quality of this critical collection is articulated by the late John Gassner in a piece Mr. Ferres has chosen to include: "How the contemporary higher criticism can tie itself up in knots when it is confronted by honest, forthright work is well shown in reviews of the play, As usual, the workaday New York newspaper reviewers come off better than the critics who write for recondite pUblications; the newspapermen report on what they see, whereas esoteric critics see only what they want to discuss." Given The Crucible's powerfully immediate impact on an audience as well as its peculiar stage history and varied critical receptions first in the McCarthy days of 1953 and then at the distance of five calming years in 1958 - given, I repeat, these particular internal and external aspects of the play and its production record, the inclusion of selected opening-night reviews 238 BOOK REVIEWS from each year would have been more than a welcome addition to the volume; indeed, their absence creates a gaping hiatus. Not that newspaper reviews are altogether omitted - there are three - but they are the sort that appear, say, on some Sunday following the opening, and exhibit, accordingly, the quiet reflection allowed by that passage of time. Nothing in the collection captures that kind of immediate response only to be found in those reviews that appear "the morning after." What Ferres' collection does contain is an introduction by him satisfying in its biographical, historical, and critical commentary on Miller and The Crucible, neglectful only of the play's structure - followed by eighteen critical essays ( mostly excerpts from longer pieces) and the playwright's own "Additional Scene" of confrontation between Proctor and Abigail. Of the essays two provide background on witchcraft and McCarthyism, the latter especially useful for younger readers in the 1970s. The remaining sixteen are divided into the sub-sections "Reviews," "Interpretations," and "Viewpoints ," the distinction between the last two not immediately apparent except in...