So I auditioned for this play this week. I read it again since I always like to read plays before auditioning for them. So. Here is my second Arhur Miller play in this blog. It's a justly famous one. The Crucible.
Written mostly as an indictment of the McCarthy and the Blacklist of the 1950's, it is a powerful and well crafted work. It is fictionalized history and in a small way that bothers me. The motives of the girls in the story are entirely invented to serve the purpose of the play and, while effective dramatically, it lends a patina of explanation to the historical events it deals with that is lacking in fact.
Those historical events are the Salem Witch trials. In 1692 and 1693, a group of young girls claimed to be tortured by witches. They accused people in their community of being those witches resulting in the execution of 20 people and the imprisonment of many more. Miller does play fast and loose with the facts, inventing an adulterous relationship between one of the main accusers Abagail Williams and the play de facto lead male character, John Proctor. He also ages her 6 years to accomadate this.
In Act I we learn that the girls and a Caribbean slave, Tituba, were dancing naked in the woods. On of the girls is in a mysterious trance. The girls led by Abagail Williams begin to accuse people of witchcraft. Eventually, John Proctor's wife is accused, so that once she is dead John will be free to return to Abagail. He doesn't want this and tries to expose Abagail's hypocrisy. He fails and is killed. Basically.
There are, of course, more nuances than this but that is the scaffold of the the drama. The play is effective. It triggers an innate sense of justice in us. Knowing, as we do, the accusations to be false seeing them taken so seriously is incredibly frustrating. All the characters are well written. And the play has a good sense of rhythm and timing. The characters speak in a strange fake early English that gives a credible sense of place and time. There is a sense of the arguments being a bit pat and obvious, but apart from Abagail, there isn't a a character that is an out and out Straw man.
Reading this play caused me to do some research into the actual Salem Witch trials, which I suppose is a good thing. There isn't as clear a reason for those events as the play presents. That is both a blessing and a curse. I can't help but wish the play could be more historically accurate, but the actual history is less compelling than the play; more ambiguous and therefore more difficult to form an adequate opinion of what happened. Miller's play has clear villains and heroes. History does not.
Written mostly as an indictment of the McCarthy and the Blacklist of the 1950's, it is a powerful and well crafted work. It is fictionalized history and in a small way that bothers me. The motives of the girls in the story are entirely invented to serve the purpose of the play and, while effective dramatically, it lends a patina of explanation to the historical events it deals with that is lacking in fact.
Those historical events are the Salem Witch trials. In 1692 and 1693, a group of young girls claimed to be tortured by witches. They accused people in their community of being those witches resulting in the execution of 20 people and the imprisonment of many more. Miller does play fast and loose with the facts, inventing an adulterous relationship between one of the main accusers Abagail Williams and the play de facto lead male character, John Proctor. He also ages her 6 years to accomadate this.
In Act I we learn that the girls and a Caribbean slave, Tituba, were dancing naked in the woods. On of the girls is in a mysterious trance. The girls led by Abagail Williams begin to accuse people of witchcraft. Eventually, John Proctor's wife is accused, so that once she is dead John will be free to return to Abagail. He doesn't want this and tries to expose Abagail's hypocrisy. He fails and is killed. Basically.
There are, of course, more nuances than this but that is the scaffold of the the drama. The play is effective. It triggers an innate sense of justice in us. Knowing, as we do, the accusations to be false seeing them taken so seriously is incredibly frustrating. All the characters are well written. And the play has a good sense of rhythm and timing. The characters speak in a strange fake early English that gives a credible sense of place and time. There is a sense of the arguments being a bit pat and obvious, but apart from Abagail, there isn't a a character that is an out and out Straw man.
Reading this play caused me to do some research into the actual Salem Witch trials, which I suppose is a good thing. There isn't as clear a reason for those events as the play presents. That is both a blessing and a curse. I can't help but wish the play could be more historically accurate, but the actual history is less compelling than the play; more ambiguous and therefore more difficult to form an adequate opinion of what happened. Miller's play has clear villains and heroes. History does not.
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