Something cool happened yesterday, which I felt a tad guilty about at the same time. Unlike last Saturday the sun was shining, so yesterday morning I had what I assumed was a brilliant idea and emailed the Globe theatre. I explained what happened, about my powerchair, the rain, and why we missed half the play, asking if we could perhaps go to another performance. A couple of hours later I got a reply asking for our booking details, which of course I gave. I soon got another email back, informing me that we could go to the performance that afternoon. For a moment I was over the moon, until John, who was by then in the room, told me that he couldn’t go because he had things he needed to do here. I instantly felt extremely guilty: going to see The Crucible had been his idea in the first place, and I should have checked with him before I sent the email.

By that time, however, there was no time to get into that: it was almost one and the performance would apparently start at two. I hopped onto a bus and set off for the South Bank, feeling rather guilty but looking forward to what I was about to see.

Arthur Miller’s Crucible is a fascinating play. As I said last week, it was a text I studied at A Level, but I had never seen it performed live. The spectacle I was witness to yesterday afternoon was incredible. It’s a play where tension slowly builds and builds until, in the third act, it’s almost tangible, with all the characters accusing one another of witchcraft. Their denial only results in more suspicion, escalating to a riveting, heart-breaking, almost unbearable denouement. The way it was performed yesterday was jaw-dropping, and I really felt for the lead character, John Proctor, trapped in a position he had no way of escaping. This was theatre at it’s greatest.

Of course, Miller’s play is famously an allegory for the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, so that’s what I kept thinking about throughout yesterday’s performance: what are we actually watching, and what might it mean? You only need to turn on the evening news to see that there is a crucible now burning in America far more dangerous, more insidious than either Proctor or Miller could ever have imagined; and I think that may have been among the reasons why this play is being performed at the Globe this summer. The timing cannot be ignored. A play illustrating the first time people in America descended into embittered, suspicious anarchy is actually about the second; but what might it now say about the third? What worries me is that this time, there won’t be any rapturous applause at the end.

As the play ended and I started to leave the theatre, of course I felt deeply satisfied: it had been a fascinating afternoon. But I needed to make sure I did two things: first I got a copy of Arthur Miller’s play so I could reread it and study it more deeply; but I also asked if John could go, perhaps in a few weeks, since he couldn’t come with me yesterday, and I’m glad to say he can.