The Devil in Boston: A Play about the Salem Witchcraft Trials in Three Acts (1948)

Lion Feuchtwanger (1884-1958) was a German-Jewish emigre and fierce critic of the Nazis even before they assumed power ("Jew Suess," 1925; "Success," 1930). He and his wife Marta obtained asylum in the United States in 1941 and lived near Los Angeles from 1941 on. Feuchtwanger continued to write bestselling historical fiction. This play, "The Devil in Boston," is one of few attempts to establish a presence in American theater. "The Crucible" (1953) by preeminent American playwright Arthur Miller (1915–2005) has become widely acknowledged as a play for all times about the hunt for “witches” and other supposed evildoers and about mass hysteria. It is a little-known fact that the German-Jewish émigré writer Lion Feuchtwanger published a play about the Salem trials before Arthur Miller did. "Mania or The Devil in Boston" was published in German in 1948 in Los Angeles. The English translation of this play by the prolific translator June Barrows Mussey was performed in Los Angeles and New York but never published so far, probably because Feuchtwanger returned to writing historical novels. "The Devil in Boston" has a simpler plot and setting than Miller's play, and its language is very accessible. Feuchtwanger studied the Salem documents and followed them closely, but also made important changes. His play focuses on the girl with whom the witch hunt began, the daughter of the Salem Village pastor Samuel Parris. His second focus is Cotton Mather, preacher in Boston, who was an important theologian but also a fervent believer in witchcraft and part of the New England theocracy. Similarly to Miller's play, "The Devil in Boston" presents the dynamics of persecutions of "witches" and other outsiders, such as communists in the 1940s USA. It also offers a reconciliatory belief in a new beginning after phases of mania, applicable to Germany after 1945, a belief in progress and Enlightenment, quite a surprise from a Jewish author forced into exile.It was Feuchtwanger who had first recognized the appeal of the Salem trials to the American audience, and his play deserves to be rediscovered and by an English-language audience and included in High School and College readings. June Barrows Mussey (1910–1985) was an American translator who was most active during the 1940s and completed many works by German and other European authors, mostly novels but also Hitler's "Mein Kampf" for a non-profit, politically enlightening edition in the US. The edition includes the notes for the "Theater Version." There is a short introduction by Waltraud Maierhofer (University of Iowa) to the play and its author. Illustrations (program notes, original stage design, photographs from the premiere).