The first scene of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” gets down to business immediately: The Rev. Samuel Parris (Colin Smith) has seen some girls dancing naked in the moonlight, and now his daughter, Betty, is lying unconscious. Rumors have begun to circulate that Abigail Williams (Sarah Lasko) has seen the devil and that Satan is possessing many women. One of Miller’s most searing dramas, “The Crucible,” playing at Keegan Theatre, looks at the broad, universal theme of honesty through the narrow lens of a particular time in history: the witch trials of Salem, Mass., in 1692.

With accusations and counteraccusations flying, a religious scholar named Rev. John Hale (Kevin Hasser) is brought in to try to scare the devil out of Betty, but to no avail.