Last month, stage actor Osamu Takizawa passed away at age 93. His list of appearances would fill this page, but I remember him as Danforth, the judge and prosecutor in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible."
The play concerned the witch trials in Salem, Mass. in 1692, but of course was written to reflect the "witch hunt" aspect of investigations into communism going on in the U.S. In 1950, with investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee already underway, Senator Joe McCarthy instigated his own crusade against communism, and in 1953 "The Crucible" opened in New York. Reviews were consistently bad, such as "lacks sufficient development" and "fails as a work."
The play closed, and in 1956 Miller himself was called for questioning. About two years afterward, "The Crucible" reopened to rave reviews and praise for "a greatly improved script." But the critics and scholars were mistaken: It was the same script. The only improvement was in the atmosphere of the times, no longer afflicted by the paranoia of McCarthyism.