At least in Salem the witch trials were held in public. Was it prescient of Sir Richard Eyre, former director of Britain's Royal National Theatre, to accede to Arthur Miller's wishes and bring the playwright's most produced work to Broadway's Virginia Theatre in March, or is the uncomfortable truth just the fact that The Crucible has the strength to speak to each generation because its subject matter, a society afraid of dissent, remains sadly and cyclically relevant? At the heart of the play are two people whose basic human decency will not erode, even under the most pressing of circumstances. Eyre has cast Liam Neeson as John Proctor—an honorable farmer who takes on the neighborhood by refusing to admit to consorting with the Devil—because "there is something heroic about him, inherently decent," and Laura Linney as his righteous and loving wife because "she is a rock of integrity." (The principals' good looks and box-office appeal, we must assume then, are directorial gravy.) So when posed with the current most-oft-asked question in cultural journalism—"In a post-9/11 world, do you think now has different implications?"— Eyre replies, "It is extremely hard at the moment to take a stand against the consensus. The play takes place in the 17th century, but I hope it will feel like the present day." John Ashcroft, your house seats await you at the box office.