“The Crucible was an act of desperation.” These were the words of playwright Arthur Miller about the origins of this play, based on historical facts. In 1692, in the small American community of Salem, women and men are persecuted and tried for witchcraft. Rumours and lies are set alight and no one seems safe from accusation or revenge. When it premiered, in 1953, The Crucible was intended as a parallel to the dark spectre of McCarthyism, which was corroding the heart of the United States, consumed by the anti-communist fever that also victimised Miller. Many echoes resound today from its epicentre – a primeval fascination with paranoia, which sacrifices individuals in its collective fury. It is with this that Nuno Cardoso proceeds to inquire into the foundations of communal living, in a separate essay about the blindness of the social individual. Back to Miller: “Below its concerns with justice, the play evokes a lethal brew of illicit sexuality, fear of the supernatural, and political manipulation.”