How can a play written in 1953 about the hysteria of McCarthyism still be cogent today? After seeing Penobscot Theatre Company’s production of “The Crucible,” you might be tempted to say that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Arthur Miller crafted the story about a group of 17th century Puritan girls accused of witchcraft after they were caught dancing in the woods and came down with mysterious illnesses. After fictionalizing details from actual documents about the Salem witch trials in 1692, Miller must have known that the United States would continue to struggle with the balance between freedom and patriotism. He was concerned with the paranoia expressed in McCarthyism in his own time, but his words still tell us something about our own time, too.

Some lines in “The Crucible” have an eerie familiarity. For instance, Deputy Governor Danforth, who is officiating at the trials, addresses Giles Corey, a local man who has nervously submitted a list of residents – he might have been accused of “naming names” in Miller’s day – as testimony that one of the accused is an honest and innocent man. Danforth decides to have everyone on the list investigated, and Giles is crestfallen. Here’s what he proclaims to the man:

“You must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time – we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God’s grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it. I hope you will be one of those.”

When a Penobscot Theatre production opened last weekend at the Opera House, an audible gasp went through the hall when these lines were spoken. It wasn’t just that the show had so entranced the audience with the intense drama, but that the lines reverberated with a more recent proclamation in America. Who wasn’t thinking of the haunting line President George W. Bush spoke shortly after the tragic events of Sept. 11: You are either with us or against us?

The company’s managing artistic director Mark Torres has insightfully partnered with the Margaret Chase Smith Library to present a mini exhibition on the hysteria of the 1950s and Sen. Smith’s public denunciation of her colleague Joseph McCarthy. (Smith, who was from Skowhegan, was one of the earliest critics of McCarthy.) The combination creates a dialogue between the past and the present.

Attending the show is like walking into the type of history class you wish you had in college, one that bridges real events with art, living voices and elegant writing. Yet “The Crucible” is also entertaining. Despite the gravity of its message, the cast delivers wit and suspense. If you think that “The Crucible” is as boring as a textbook, think again.

The show’s director, Tlaloc Rivas, avoids a heavy-handed, didactic approach largely through careful pacing and a handful of transfixing performances. Tom Crutcher as Danforth doesn’t show up until the second half, but he makes a powerful impression. He is often accompanied by the quick-blaming Judge Hathorne, whom John Greenman presents as excitable and slightly mad.

Both meet their match in James Noel Hoban as John Proctor, the Puritan who speaks out against the wild accusations. Hoban truly embodies the role of Proctor, showing his strength and vulnerability, his anger and his love for his wife. He is a good man, both for his struggle to be honest and decent, and for his resistance to evil persuasion and political gain. When his sexual encounter with Abigail Williams, the girl who pushes the town over the edge, becomes his undoing, Hoban also allows us to see the personal salvation he achieves.

Why Proctor strayed from his wife Elizabeth may be one of the only mysteries of the play. Meagan Hawkes portrays Elizabeth first as unforgiving and then as saintly, but her characterization captures something vital about the plainness of the community in which she and her husband expose their frailty and devotion. Her unleashed emotional state at the end compromises some of her effect, but Hawkes gives fully to this role and, in doing so, brings the political into the marital – and the other way around.

As Abigail, Liz Finnegan is cruel and clever enough, but it is nearly impossible to understand her quick speech and accent. All the actors adopt the plain speech of the era, but Finnegan muddles an otherwise enticing performance.

“The Crucible” has 24 characters, a difficult number to juggle for any ensemble or director. But this group works seamlessly and is well-balanced. Farhiya Mahamud as Tituba, Claire Kiedrowski as Ann Putnam, Louise Contino as Mary Warren, Charlotte Herbold as Rebecca Nurse, Philip Price as Giles Corey, and Dennis Price as Rev. Parris offer particularly fine supporting performances.

Merope Vachlioti’s three white panels are dappled with light (designed by Lynne Chase) that suggests a Rorschach test. The overall production is colored in stark white, cool gray, earthen brown. It is as lonely and howling as a long winter wind. Those hues carry over into Susan R. Smith’s period costumes, as well as a white cross on the raked stage floor. It emphasizes the foundational imperatives of the people: God is their fortress.

This is a chilling, emotionally draining production that kept an audience last weekend on the edge of its seats. The final scene is perhaps too high-pitched and would have benefited from returning, in some fashion, to the milieu of the Puritans. Still, it is instructive to return to Miller’s questions about our country, its leaders and the effect of McCarthy-style suspicion on any community.

Penobscot Theatre Company will present “The Crucible” at 7 p.m. Nov. 11, 8 p.m. Nov. 12 and 13, and 2 p.m. Nov. 14 at the Opera House, 131 Main St. in Bangor. For information and reservations, call 942-3333 or visit www.PenobscotTheatre.org. Alicia Anstead can be reached at 990-8266 and aanstead@bangordailynews.net.