Theatre: The Crucible, intense, gripping anatomy of a conspiracy

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It's a testament to Arthur Miller's playwrighting craft that such a lengthy, talky play retains the power to grip.

Famously written as a metaphor for the McCarthy hearings in 50s America, this intense account of the Salem Witchcraft trials evokes a repressive theocracy in which young girls grasp their fleeing moment of power before the pillars of church and state shore up the patriarchy.

With a prologue reminding us that Salem was a fledgling colony founded on religious fundamentalism and persecution, it feels more a period piece than an urgent comment on, say, contemporary right wing politics.

Brendan Cowell as John Proctor and Rachelle Diedericks as Mary Warren in The Crucible (Image: (C)JOHAN PERSSON)

That said, it brilliantly captures the relentless unfolding of an unprovable conspiracy - how it embeds itself from pre-conceived fears, proliferates in echo chambers, produces mass hysteria, then doubles down in the face of contrary evidence.

Lyndsey Turner's slow-to-start but fervent production sees choral voices rise, and rain drum down on Es Devlin's dimly lit square set, as girls - like a row of smock-wearing dolls - concoct their story to avert Puritan condemnation for illicit dancing.

Brendan Cowell's John Proctor is the reluctant voice of reason, a flawed man of the people who stands up to the madness and is overcome by events. His own infidelity with Erin Doherty's stiff-gaited, swivel-eyed Abigail draws him and wife Elizabeth (Eileen Walsh compelling in her pain) into the horror.

Erin Doherty as Abigail and as Fisayo Akinade Hale in The Crucible (Image: (C)JOHAN PERSSON)

The Proctors are proud and half broken by the end - which is probably how blacklisted Communists felt after being run over by McCarthy. Fisayo Akinade's anguished Hale is the human face of Christianity - tortured at his involvement in hanging innocent souls, Doherty is admirably froth-flecked and unseductive, while Karl Johnson offers some much-needed light relief as elderly curmudgeon Giles Corey.

It's not exactly an enjoyable night out, but it's deep, hard drama.

Until November 5. https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-crucible