Classroom activities Ask students to label the map of Salem Village with specific scenes from The Crucible where the action takes place. Students should determine if the scene is part of the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, or resolution. As we head into the end of 2020, we’re still taking a slow, measured approach to re-opening, but are excited to be moving forward with new classes and expanded offerings for.

Inspired by the House Un-American Activities Committee and the McCarthy trials of the 1950s, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play set in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts during the height of the mass hysteria known as the Salem witch trials. What did these two events nearly 250 years apart have in common? Both the hunt for communists in the 1950s and the hunt for witches in 1692 seemed to be provoked by hidden agendas, iniquitous motives, and little factual evidence. While Miller based his play on the historical accounts of the Salem witch trials, using the names of the people involved, it is a work of fiction. In order to appeal to theatergoers, Miller makes a love triangle the driving force behind the hysteria. However, the play retains Miller’s message about what happens when checks and balances are overlooked, fear becomes the driving force behind accusations, and people are guilty until proven innocent. This primary source set includes photographs, transcripts, text documents, and footage that provides context for thematic elements within The Crucible.

March 30, 1990

By MEL GUSSOW

he Crucible' is not only Arthur Miller's most-produced play; it has also become his most continually relevant work of political theater. By focusing on the Salem witch hunts of the 17th century, the playwright placed the outrage of McCarthyism in historical perspective and created a drama that has remained meaningful to succeeding generations. Gerald Freedman's articulate revival at the Roundabout Theater Company is as resolute as the play itself.

Although this is the first New York production since the Lincoln Center version 18 years ago, 'The Crucible' is performed with frequency at America's regional theaters (and throughout the world). There were two recent major productions in the Northeast, four years ago at the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I., and earlier this season at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven.

In the hands of different directors and actors, and with slight alteration in emphasis, each of the three revivals illustrates the consequential themes of the play: the epidemic of evil, the perversion of religion and civil order and the way that decency can outlive even the most disquieting events. For the playwright, justice and jurisprudence will always triumph over the immediate inequities of the legal system.

The Cruciblemr. Becker's Classroom Activities

The law in various guises permeates Mr. Miller's work. Plays from 'All My Sons' through 'After the Fall' and his recent one-acts operate in a courtroom of ideas. In this sense, Salem, at the time of the witch hunt, becomes the crucible for tyranny, as the innocent are considered guilty even in the light of evidence to the contrary. 'Black mischief' and fear are loose, and neighbor deserts neighbor. For the time of the play, all reason has absented itself. To be 'somewhat mentioned' in a preliminary hearing is tantamount to being condemned to death.

The firm moral center of this insane universe is Elizabeth Proctor, a woman unable to tell a lie, except to try to save her husband's life. Depending on the performance, Elizabeth can seem sanctimonious, a good wife preoccupied with self-denial. In her restrained but moving performance, Harriet Harris avoids that danger, giving Elizabeth a firm individual identity before she has to face their joint crisis.

With equal perspicacity, Randle Mell studiously avoids making Proctor seem heroic or even stoic, at least until his final act of conscience. He is willful and temperamental, a more emotionally highstrung Proctor than is customary. Demanding that Mary Warren, Abigail's acolyte, testify in defense of his wife, he grabs the girl by the throat and lifts her off her feet, holding her aloft as if she were a rag doll. In this and other moments, Mr. Mell becomes a man enraged. The performances by him and Ms. Harris certify the strength of the couple's bond. For Mr. Mell's Proctor, the liaison with Abigail has been an aberration, a misstep but not something to shake his enduring attachment to his wife.

Abigail is character assassin as catalyst. From her first entrance, Justine Bateman - making her New York stage debut - projects the character's nervous intensity, a near demonism that derives from her rebuffed sensuality. A self-dramatizer, she drops her abrasiveness in a quiet plea for Proctor's love. When he rejects her for the last time, she moves unswervingly on her course of vengeance.

The Cruciblemr. Becker's Classroom Management

Using Christopher H. Barreca's spare, woodhewn set, Mr. Freedman's production is unadorned. Performed within a proscenium, the play loses a sense of a surrounding environment (which it had in the Long Wharf and Providence open-stage versions). No longer do we feel the swirl of predators around their prey. But the production compensates by focusing the audience's attention on the three principal characters and the central dramatic conflict.

The Cruciblemr. Becker's Classroom

The Cruciblemr. Becker's Classroom Assessment

The primary change that occurs in the course of the play is in the character of the Reverend Hale, who gradually awakens to the inhumanity around him. Then, to his surprise, he realizes he is contradicting his principles by asking the pure in heart to perjure themselves in order to survive. As Hale, William Leach moves forcefully from good intentions to acts of rebellion. There is watchful support from, among others, Vicki Lewis (as Mary Warren), Maury Cooper and Ruth Nelson.

The Crucible Mr. Becker's Classroom Practice

In Mr. Miller's apt words, the play deals with 'one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history.' Though the basic events are true, one always greets them with incredulity. Even today, with formerly repressive nations promoting individual liberty, the scourge that the playwright first identified in the 1950's remains a lingering global presence. In revival, 'The Crucible' leaves disturbing reverberations.