The Crucible – by Arthur Miller
Historical, social and theatrical context
• Salem witch trials of 1692
• Miller's reaction to how the House of Un-American Activities
Committee (HUAC) operated at the time when the play was written,
and the dangers of the McCarthyist fervour that gripped America in
the 1950s
• Play prompted by Marion Starkey's "The Devil in Massachusetts"
(1949) which suggested that attitudes towards race and nationality
during the Second World War made the Salem witch trials an allegory
for that period.
• Miller found the core of his plot in Charles W. Upham's 1867 "Salem
Witchcraft" in which all of the play's characters are referred to and
many of its events related
• There was much rivalry between Salem Village and the more
mercantile Salem Town, and jealousy of those like the Proctors and
Nurses who owned property between them
• January 1692, Reverend Parris' daughter became afflicted with
contortions and fits
• Witchcraft was suspected
• Thomas Putnam et al accused Tituba and two other disreputable
women of the village, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, of causing the
afflictions
• Trials began in May resulting in 62 arrests and more to follow
• Most of the accused were found guilty on controversial and
questionable evidence
• The majority of the accused were women as they were considered
the weaker gender and therefore more susceptible to the devil
• Most were condemned to death
• Bridget Bishop, 60 years old claimed innocence to the moment of her
death
• Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, plus 3 more women were hanged in July.
• Elizabeth Proctor given a stay of execution as she was pregnant
• Proctor hanged alongside Burroughs and three others on 19 August
• Burroughs recited the Lord's prayer on the scaffold which was
supposedly impossible for an agent of the devil
• None executed were allowed proper burial.
• The courts were dismissed in October after several complaints, and
when they reconvened the following year, with Danforth serving for
the first time, evidence based on apparitions were no longer
admissible
• Although three additional women were found guilty many charges
were dismissed and there were no more hangings.
• By March the trials had been discredited.
• By May, Elizabeth and the rest of the prisoners were released
• Hale, who was the great grandfather of the American Revolutionary
War hero Nathan Hale, changed his mind late in the court
proceedings after his wife was accused of witchcraft
• By 1702 the General Court declared the 1692 trials unlawful
• By 1711 restitutions were made to victims
• In 1752 Salem Village was renamed Danvers but it was not until 1957
that Massachusetts made a formal apology.
• In 1992 on the 300th anniversary of the trials, a park in Salem was
opened with a stone bench in memory of those executed.
• Miller spoke at the dedication ceremony
It was the uncompromising moral absolutism of that era's Puritans that
Miller wished to capture and expose. The original prosecutions was as
blind to facts and relentless as they appear to be in the play
There were many like the Putnams who took full mercenary advantage
of the situation or stood by and allowed the atrocities to happen
HUAC
Connecting McCarthyism to the way people acted in Salem, Miller felt
that the 1950s American vision of communism was a moral issue,
which viewed communists as in league with the Devil. This he linked to
the Puritan sense of rectitude that seemed to suggest that anyone with
whom they disagreed must be allied to Satan
• Miller initially resisted the idea of depicting the HUAC hearings in the
form of an old fashioned witch trial as too obvious. However, as the
HUAC hearings grew more ritualistic and cruelly pointless, he could
no longer resist, despite the obvious risks, for the parallels were far
too apt to ignore. He saw how both sets of hearings had a definite
structure behind them, designed to make people publicly confess. In
both cases, the "judges" knew in advance all of the information for
which they asked . The main difference was that Salem's hearings had
a greater legality! It was against the law to be a witch...it was not
illegal to be a communist
Themes...directorial/authorial choices...
A look at different productions and focuses
• The Crucible opened on 22nd January 1953. Its initial reception was
mixed possibly as it was perceived as a work critical of current politics
• Ten years later the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center had a hit
production, directed by John Berry. He was the first to emphasize the
play's sexual rivalry and suggest sympathy for Abigail- perhaps a
reflection of changing mores – as well as revealing contemporary
connections about authority and truth during the Vietnam War
• Pamela Payton-Wright's Abigail was portrayed as genuinely loving
Proctor and highly aggrieved by his rejection, while Robert Foxworth's
Proctor, spoken with a British Northern accent became a
representative of the working class when he spoke against the
pompous magistrates and greedy landowners.
• The play's fifth Broadway revival in 2002 emphasized the relationship
between the Proctors rather between Proctor and Abigail. Major stars
were cast – Liam Neeson and Laura Linney.
• The stars dominated the show, but this offered an interesting take on
the Proctor's relationship. Neeson and Linney portrayed a more
evident sexual relationship than usual with Proctor purposefully
stripping off his shirt to wash himself in front of his wife while she
struggles to control her emotional responses to him.
• Abigail was portrayed as decidedly unsexy and a sullen teen
• It makes Proctor's adultery less credible but focuses on how a
problematic marriage survives
• In 1985 at the Young Vic directed by David Thacker, close attention
was paid to individual characterization
• The 1991 production at the Olivier Theatre directed by Howard Davies
received mixed reviews but focused primarily on the issue of group
hysteria
• Britain's 2006 Royal Shakespeare Production directed by Dominic
Cooke saw the play's relevance to a post 9/11 society in which
politicians exploit public fear to destroy civil liberties and create
scapegoats.
• The Guardian said that Cooke brought out "the play's political
urgency" and praised Iain Glen's Proctor as "a figure of Lawrentian
power and sensuality" pitted against Elaine Cassidy's Abigail, who was
"not the usual diabolical nymphet, but a young girl whose sexual
stirrings find no outlet in this community". This allows Abigail to be as
much a victim as those put on trial. The rising profile of feminism?
• The 1982 BBC production by Louis Mark portrayed Proctor as a
"damaged man" who rises against injustice.
1996 Twentieth Century Fox Production
• What do you think so far…?