ARTHUR Miller's intense drama The Crucible comes to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre on Thursday and director Dominic Cooke sees parallels between the period in which it was written and the present day.

Miller's play is an indictment of the paranoia which gripped America in the 1950s and led to the McCarthy trials, labelled witch-hunts, which ruined the lives of many people who were branded as communists.

It tells the true story of the bloody witch-hunts in the American village of Salem in 1692, but Cooke sees a relationship between both events and the present-day fear of terrorism.

"I wanted to direct The Crucible because it seems, sadly, a play very much for our times.

"With Bush and Blair generating hysteria over terrorism and the frightening rise of Christian fundamentalism in the US, there are real parallels between the world of Miller's play and our own times," he said.

Miller was writing very much about the rise of McCarthyism and the House of Un-American Activities, said Cooke.

At that time, the American people were terrified of the communist takeover in China and Russia's recent development of nuclear weapons.

"Similarly, our post 9/11 world is characterised by politicians, in the US especially, exploiting public fear to get away with destroying civil liberties and also blaming minorities, for example gay people, for corrupting American values.

"It seems society's need to find scapegoats and go on witch-hunts hasn't gone away. We live in very fearful times and Miller shows how dangerous it is to make decisions when guided by fear."

Cooke is also delighted to be directing his first play by the great American writer who died in February last year.

"The Crucible is a truly Shakespearean play and is a perfect play for the RSC to do on the main stage.

"Firstly it is a huge public play which is big enough in its sweep and ambition to fill that huge space. Secondly its language is beautifully poetic and heightened in the Shakespearean tradition.

"Thirdly, Miller uses the past to examine the problems of the present in the same way Shakespeare does in his history plays. Finally, it is a truly great play, one of the greatest of our times and it's important that the RSC produces other great plays, both contemporary and classic, alongside the plays of Shakespeare.

"Miller is one of the most important writers of the 20th century. What marks him out for me is his remarkable compassion. He sees how cruel the world can be, and how circumstances can lead people to being destructive and dishonest but he never judges his characters.

"That to me is the mark of a truly great writer, and you can sense the same quality when you work on Shakespeare or Chekhov. Miller also has great technique and a brilliant way of dramatising the relationship of the individual to his or her society.

"All of Miller's plays are, in some way, about the way the public world shapes the choices that individuals make. Shakespeare deals with this relationship vividly as well."

As part of his research, Cooke visited Salem and found a bizarre situation had arisen.

"Salem itself has created a tourist industry out of the witch-hunts which is a little tacky and strange. The town is full of small waxwork museums and new age paraphernalia and the one serious museum tells you nothing about the events of 1692.

"The real events of the play didn't take place in Salem town but in Salem Village, which is about five miles away and is now called Danvers. My partner and I drove around and found many of the homes of characters in the play: Rebecca Nurse's house, John Proctor's tavern and John Hale's farm in Beverley are all standing.

"It was really helpful to me to see the distances between locations and what the landscape and climate are like."

The play stars Iain Glen as John Proctor and also features Helen Schlesinger, Robert Bowman, James Laurenson and Trevor Peacock.

The Crucible plays the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from February 16 to March 18. Box Office: 0870 609 1110 or www.rsc.org.uk.