THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, September 20, 2019 |A
FOR GOOD MEASURE| By Mike Shenk
TheWSJDailyCrossword |Edited by Mike Shenk
1234 56789 101112
13 14 15
16 17 18
19 20 21 22
23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31
32 33 34 35 36
37 38 39
40 41 42
43 44 45
46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56
57 58 59 60
61 62 63
64 65 66The answer to
this week’s contest
crossword is a unit
of measurement.
Across
1 Vintner’s valley
5 Alternative to
Italian
10 Even prime
13 Took some
courses
14 Hilo howdy
15 Donald’s first
secretary of
state
16 Grade aid
18 Cornelius or Dr.
Zaius, e.g.
19 Victim of crank
calls from BartPrevious Puzzle’s Solution20 Area
21 Euro divisions
23 As originally
positioned
25 Flashes of
insight
26 Asset for
investors and
city drivers
32 Maker of
G-Shock
watches
35 Ford Field squad
36 Copying
37 Reptiles
symbolizing
royalty
38 Lively Baroque
dance
39 Duty40 Barra Olympic
Park setting
41 Member of the
Teen Titans
42 Intelligence
agency
infiltrators
43 Gate crasher
46 Symbol of purity
47 Five Nations
group
51 Ballerina
descriptor
53 Significant
spread
56 Many a soccer
rooter
57 Toupee
58 “No, thank you,”
e.g.61 Bat material
62 Honey bunch
63 Lipinski’s leaps
64 Still
65 Cary of “The
Princess Bride”
66 Running pros
Down
1 Co-star of
Parker, Davis
and Cattrall
2 Playing costs
3 Apiece
4 Get comfortable
with
5 Avis descriptor
6 1960s British
prime minister
Douglas-Home
7 Mass
8 X look-alike
9 Sub entries
10 Region disputed
in the Boer Wars
11 Cried
12 Clumsy oafs
13 Pop singer
Lovato
17 This is one
22 Corn unit
24 Mother of Horus
25 Great-aunt of
Archie, George,
Charlotte and
Louis
27 One might be
airtight
28 “Eat!”29 In the springtime
of life
30 Different
31 611 Fifth Avenue
merchant
32 Potato or pasta,
e.g.
33 Largest section
of a Risk board
34 2015 film that
won the Best
Picture Oscar
38 Earning an R,
maybe
39 Volume
41 Slip back
42 Poacher catcher
44 Cook in the tech
biz
45 Increased
48 Force
49 American Girl
array
50 Organic frozen
food brand
51 Join the service,
perhaps
52 Trick
53 Diamond defect
54 Name on
Kilkenny coins
55 Balance providers
59 Ron Weasley’s
Pigwidgeon, e.g.
60 Skeleton starters
Email your answer—in the subject line—to [email protected]
by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday, Sept. 22. A solver selected at random
will win a WSJ mug. Last week’s winner: Frances Yang, San Francisco, CA.
Complete contest rules at WSJ.com/Puzzles. (No purchase necessary.
Void where prohibited. U.S. residents 18 and over only.)SALAD FOSSE I DO
CROSS INNER MUD
R I CHTEXT I LE SOD
ASA R IOT CHESS
GELAT IN CSTAR
GUESTHOST ILE
ADMEN REM HOAX
WRY ALTERED UNI
LAMA IRK ONSET
SWISSMISSILE
S I ENA ATTEMPT
BETAS NOTE AIR
ERA ANGRYMOB I LE
ARK MOLAR HONES
USE EDENS OPEDSPUZZLE
CONTESTWeather
Shown are today’s noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.City Hi LoW Hi LoW City Hi LoW Hi LoWToday Tomorrow Today TomorrowCity Hi LoW Hi LoWAnchorage 55 49 r 54 43 r
Atlanta 83 64 s 86 63 pc
Austin 94 73 t 94 71 pc
Baltimore 83 56 s 87 60 s
Boise 66 45 pc 70 49 pc
Boston 81 65 s 80 65 s
Burlington 77 58 s 79 59 s
Charlotte 81 56 s 85 59 s
Chicago 84 68 c 80 66 t
Cleveland 85 67 s 85 69 s
Dallas 89 75 pc 91 73 c
Denver 85 48 s 75 43 t
Detroit 82 66 s 83 68 pc
Honolulu 88 74 s 88 76 sh
Houston 84 76 t 88 74 pc
Indianapolis 84 65 s 83 68 s
Kansas City 84 69 pc 79 67 t
Las Vegas 85 65 s 89 67 s
Little Rock 80 69 c 87 70 c
Los Angeles 80 64 pc 87 66 s
Miami 89 80 sh 88 78 t
Milwaukee 78 66 c 78 67 t
Minneapolis 84 70 c 78 57 t
Nashville 88 62 s 89 64 pc
New Orleans 89 73 pc 90 74 pc
New York City 80 63 s 84 66 s
Oklahoma City 78 70 c 85 68 tOmaha 87 72 c 83 61 c
Orlando 87 73 pc 87 73 pc
Philadelphia 80 61 s 87 63 s
Phoenix 97 73 s 96 75 s
Pittsburgh 80 61 s 82 64 s
Portland, Maine 78 55 s 77 53 s
Portland, Ore. 68 57 pc 72 57 c
Sacramento 86 56 s 89 58 s
St. Louis 90 71 pc 84 74 t
Salt Lake City 62 46 sh 67 48 s
San Francisco 78 58 s 81 58 s
Santa Fe 80 50 s 79 44 s
Seattle 69 57 pc 70 59 c
Sioux Falls 85 70 c 77 54 c
Wash., D.C. 82 61 s 88 65 sAmsterdam 65 47 s 71 55 s
Athens 81 66 t 77 63 s
Baghdad 109 77 s 108 75 s
Bangkok 90 75 t 89 76 t
Beijing 83 58 pc 84 58 s
Berlin 61 48 pc 68 48 pc
Brussels 67 47 s 76 61 s
Buenos Aires 68 45 s 73 42 s
Dubai 105 84 s 102 87 s
Dublin 64 54 s 66 59 t
Edinburgh 69 49 s 68 51 sFrankfurt 67 44 s 74 48 s
Geneva 70 51 s 75 58 t
Havana 89 73 pc 88 72 sh
Hong Kong 92 78 pc 91 75 s
Istanbul 70 58 r 70 59 s
Jakarta 92 74 pc 92 74 pc
Jerusalem 84 66 s 80 65 s
Johannesburg 85 57 s 83 57 s
London 72 53 s 78 63 s
Madrid 78 61 t 74 62 t
Manila 82 78 r 86 76 t
Melbourne 78 63 pc 63 45 sh
Mexico City 75 56 t 76 56 t
Milan 71 51 s 72 57 s
Moscow 48 33 r 49 38 pc
Mumbai 85 77 sh 85 78 sh
Paris 73 52 s 82 62 s
Rio de Janeiro 92 73 s 80 70 c
Riyadh 107 75 s 107 75 s
Rome 79 59 s 78 63 pc
San Juan 91 78 c 91 80 c
Seoul 78 64 pc 79 63 c
Shanghai 81 70 pc 78 70 pc
Singapore 92 81 s 91 80 c
Sydney 70 60 r 77 62 c
Taipei City 80 72 sh 80 73 r
Tokyo 7767pc 7367r
Toronto 78 57 s 80 64 s
Vancouver 63 55 pc 65 57 c
Warsaw 5747pc 6346c
Zurich 65 40 s 72 50 sToday TomorrowU.S. Forecasts
International
City Hi LoW Hi LoWs...sunny; pc... partly cloudy; c...cloudy; sh...showers;
t...t’storms; r...rain; sf...snow flurries; sn...snow; i...ice
Today TomorrowWarmColdStationaryShowersRainT-stormsSnowFlurriesIce<
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Salt Lake CityTampaNashville
MemphisDetroitKansas
CityEl Paso DallasBillingsPortlandMiamiSan FranciscoSacramentoOrlandoAtlantaNew Orleans
HoustonSan Diego PhoenixLos AngelesLas
VegasSeattleBoiseDenverMpls./St. PaulSt. LouisChicagoWashington D.C.BostonCharlestonMilwaukee HartfordWichitaIndianapolisClevelandBuffaloAustinHelena
BismarckAlbuquerqueOmahaOklahoma CitySan AntonioDes MoinesSioux FallsJacksonBirminghamCheyenne PhiladelphiaRenoSanta FeColorado
SpringsPierreRichmond
RaleighTucsonAlbanyTopekaColumbiaAugustaFt. WorthEugeneSpringfieldMobileTorontoOttawaMontrealWinnipegVancouver CalgaryEdmonton70s50s 80s40s30s100s90s90s90s80s80s70s80s80s70s70s70s70s70s
70s60s60s60s60s50s50s50s50s
50s
50s50s50s40s50s90sa jail cell.
“The Crucible,” with its 21
named characters, lends itself nat-
urally to large-scale presentation,
and both of the revivals that I’ve
previously reviewed in this space,
directed by Gordon Edelstein for
Hartford Stage in 2011 and by Ivo
van Hove on Broadway in 2016,
were big shows full of spectacular
coups de théâtre. At the sametime, though, “The Crucible” is
also something of a conversation
piece, and by performing it with
just 13 actors in a 170-seat black-
box theater, Mr. Tucker is able to
tighten the focus of a very long
play (three hours, intermission in-
cluded) to pleasing effect.
As for the nominally feminist
angle of his staging, it’s more a
matter of acting style than any-made to look as mad as the young
women who are—we assume—ma-
nipulating them by playing on
their own deep-seated holy ter-
rors. In precisely what way does
today’s “Believe Women” slogan
apply to these women? Instead of
telling us the answer, Mr. Tucker
wisely leaves that door hanging
wide open.
Mr. Coleman is one of many ac-
tors in this production who are
giving memorable performances. I
was struck no less forcibly by
Ryan Quinn and Susannah Mil-
lonzi, who play John and Eliza-
beth Proctor, the victims-in-chief
of “The Crucible,” and who bring
the play to a harrowing close in
the scene that portrays their final
meeting. Ms. Millonzi’s face is a
shattered mask of anguish as the
lights go out for the last time,
and when Mr. Quinn tells her a
few moments earlier that “my
honesty is broke,” we know he is
speaking on behalf of the entire
community for whose collective
sin of misplaced certitude he will
shortly atone.The Crucible
Bedlam, The Nora Theatre Company,
Central Square Theater, 450 Massa-
chusetts Ave., Cambridge, Mass.
($25 and up, depending on availabil-
ity), 617-576-9278, extended through
Oct. 20Mr. Teachout, the Journal’s drama
critic, is the author of “Satchmo at
the Waldorf.” Write to him at
[email protected].thing else. Joshua Wolf Coleman,
for example, plays Deputy Gover-
nor Danforth with a tungsten-hard
edge of confidence, confronting
the female witnesses in his star-
chamber court in a manner that
nods at first to politeness but
soon gives way to brutality. No
less striking, though, is the gro-
tesquely comic possession scene,
in which the men in the court areRyan Quinn, Randolph Curtis Rand, Susannah Millonzi, Stewart EvanSmith and Truett Felt, above, and Ms. Felt, Caroline
Grogan and Karina Wen, below, in the play, which was jointly produced by Bedlam and the Nora Theatre CompanyLIFE & ARTS
Cambridge, Mass.
SIXTY-SIXyearsago,everyone
who saw “The Crucible” on Broad-
way knew perfectly well that Ar-
thur Miller’s dramatized account
of the Salem witch trials was re-
ally “about” the House Un-Ameri-
can Activities Committee’s noisy
quest to get Communists to “name
names” of their fellow Reds and so
escape the blacklist. As such, the
play was generally thought to be
theatrically effective but aestheti-
cally ham-fisted, even by left-of-
center critics like Kenneth Tynan
who might reasonably have been
expected to applaud Miller for at-
tacking HUAC.
Today, though, many people un-
der the age of 50 who see “The
Crucible” are likely to know little
or nothing about HUAC, and to the
extent that they know anything
more about the Salem witch trials,
it is often solely from having seen
the play itself (it was successfully
filmed in 1996 and is still widely
taught in schools). Would that
modern-day Americans were less
ignorant, but their ignorance, para-
doxically enough, works to the
play’s advantage, since it makes it
easier for imaginative directors to
stage “The Crucible” not as a this-
means-that allegory about McCar-
thyism but as a much less clearly
defined cautionary tale of what can
happen when fanatics—whatever
the source of their fanaticism—
seize hold of the levers of power.
Eric Tucker, however, has come
at the play from yet another di-
rection. The animating premise of
his new staging, jointly produced
by Bedlam, his own company, and
the Nora Theatre Company of
Cambridge, Mass., is wholly in
keeping with the #MeToo mo-
ment: “In a culture in which
power resides in the hands of
men—who do you trust?” If his
statement of purpose sounds sus-
piciously reductive to you, fear
not: Mr. Tucker is the least reduc-
tive of artists, and his forceful,
fast-moving “Crucible,” which will
transfer to New York in Novem-
ber, will send you home filled not
with smug self-confidence but
anxiety-making doubt.
This “Crucible,” as is its direc-
tor’s now-familiar wont, is staged
conceptually, though never rigidly
so. The “set“ is no more than a
collection of cheap chairs and ta-
bles, while Elizabeth Rocha’s sim-
ple black-and-white costumes and
the jerky movements of the actors
in the opening scene suggest that
the play is unfolding in a present-
day religious community of some
unspecified kind, one whose mem-
bers presumably see sex as the
stuff evil is made of. In the first
half, the actors are packed into a
shallow, claustrophobic upstage
space, surrounded on three sides
by the audience; after intermis-
sion, they cascade into the larger
downstage playing area, which be-
comes a courtroom and, later on,
THEATER REVIEW| TERRY TEACHOUT
Looking at Witches in the 21st Century
A staging of Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ tackles contemporary feminist challenges without moralizing
NILE SCOTT STUDIOS (2)