The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Old Vic Theatre, with Richard Armitage

This production of Arthur Miller’s classic 1953 play The Crucible should be prescribed as an anecdote to anyone who still thinks theatre is largely a middle-class display of dandyish ostentation.

Performed in-the-round inside a radically overhauled Old Vic Theatre, Yaël Farber’s moody production is a spine-chilling distillation of humanity’s capacity to be guided by fear and suspicion.

Miller’s Tony Award-winning play charts the senseless madness that created the Salem witch-hunt in the late seventeenth century. Originally written during the height of America’s Red Scare, the play is widely seen as an allegory of McCarthyism and the sensational imprisonment of suspected communists.

Farber’s opening tableau sets the tone for what will follow. Against a backdrop of intense incense smoke, the ensemble fiercely stares out at the surrounding audience. As the throng dissipates, it leads us straight into the play’s dark heart.

Abigail and Betty, along with other young girls in the village, stand accused of consulting the devil with the slave Titubar.

Betty, dexterously portrayed by former ballet dancer Marama Corlett, is sick with an unknown ailment. As word spreads through the village that she has been possessed by the devil, it leads to a witch-hunt that threatens to destroy the town.

John Proctor, played by Richard Armitage, stands at the center of Miller’s tragedy. After an affair with Abigail, his reputation stands on the line as his wife is arrested for suspected witchcraft.

Armitage is a surly, brooding Proctor who is distinctly at odds with the frenzy gripping the village. Dressed in a subtly modern way, his reasoned response to the trials jars with the primal suspicion of his fellow citizens.

The ensuing trial of Proctor and his servant Mary Warren is almost unbearably intense. Under the persistent interrogation of Deputy Governor Danforth, the courtroom is whipped into a frenzy of accusation and counter-accusation.

The acting throughout is outstanding. Jack Ellis is terrifyingly autocratic as Danforth, while Samantha Colley (startlingly making her stage debut) astutely plays Abigail as a wicked and cunning hysterical antagonist.

Farber’s direction draws the latent nefarious tension out of Miller’s cutting prose. It is difficult to imagine a more unsettling piece of theatre, and the final hour is a rattling test of the emotional reflexes. It’s surprising that nobody raced onto stage to stop proceedings at several points.

Following a rip-rollicking production of A View from the Bridge at the Young Vic earlier this summer, London has been blessed with another classic production of a Miller masterpiece.

People will be talking about this definitive version for years to come. Unmissable.

 Until 13 Sept