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The Play Guide for The Crucible was created by: Shari Wattling Artistic Associate – New Play Development Zachary Moull Assistant Dramaturg
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The Crucible runs from October 13 to November 8, 2015 For tickets, visit theatrecalgary.com or call (403) 294-7447 Front cover image by David Cooper
Table of Contents THE BASICS The Company ....................................................................01 Who’s Who? ...................................................................... 02 Time and Place ................................................................. 02 The Story .......................................................................... 03 EXPLORATIONS Wolves: A Note from Director R.H. Thomson ....................... 04 Puritanism ........................................................................ 05 Life in Colonial Salem .........................................................06 Carved out of the Wilderness An Interview with Set Designer Cameron Porteous .....09 The Devil’s Malice Witchcraft Accusations in New England and Beyond ... 12 The Salem Witch Trials ...................................................... 15 Naming Names Arthur Miller and the Red Scare ................................ 19 About the Playwright ......................................................... 22 Glossary ........................................................................... 23 CONVERSATIONS Conversation Starters ........................................................ 25 Mass Hysteria ....................................................................26 Big Reads from Calgary Public Library ................................. 28 Local Stories: Reading The Crucible in Tripoli ...................... 30 Spotlight Saturday ............................................................. 31 Sources ............................................................................ 32
THE BASICS
-1-
The Company
THE CRUCIBLE By Arthur Miller THE CAST Jesse Lynn Anderson Claire Armstrong Kevin Corey Chris Enright Stephen Hair Brian Jensen Karen Johnson-Diamond Brianna Johnston Haysam Kadri Terence Kelly Duval Lang Kelly Malcolm Caitlynne Medrek Graham Mothersill Graham Percy Valerie Planche Lennette Randall Vanessa Sabourin Karl H. Sine
Mercy Lewis Abigail Williams Reverend Samuel Parris Ezekiel Cheever Deputy-Governor Danforth Judge Hathorne Ann Putnam Susanna Wallcott Marshal Willard Giles Corey Francis Nurse Mary Warren Betty Parris Reverend John Hale Thomas Putnam Rebecca Nurse Tituba Elizabeth Proctor John Proctor
THE CREATIVE TEAM R.H. Thomson Cameron Porteous Deitra Kalyn Kevin Lamotte Joe Slabe Haysam Kadri Jane MacFarlane Shari Wattling
BEHIND THE SCENES Michael Howard Justin Born, Sara Turner Catharine Crumb Chris Jacko Scott Morris Ron Siegmund Andrew Kerr Rachel Michelle Sheridan
Director Set Design Costume Design Lighting Design Musical Director Fight Director Voice Coach Production Dramaturg Stage Manager Assistant Stage Managers Head of Lighting Head of Sound Interim Head Stage Carpenter Wig & Hairstylist, Wardrobe Master Stage Hand Dresser
THE BASICS
-2-
Who’s Who? John Proctor: A farmer who lives on the outskirts of Salem Elizabeth Proctor: His wife Abigail Williams: A teenage girl, formerly the Proctors’ servant Reverend Samuel Parris: Salem’s Puritan minister, Abigail’s uncle Betty Parris: His young daughter Tituba: His slave from Barbados Mary Warren: A teenage girl who works as the Proctors’ servant Susanna Wallcott and Mercy Lewis: Other teenage girls of the village Reverend John Hale: An expert in witchcraft from the village of Beverly Thomas Putnam and Ann Putnam: Wealthy local landowners Rebecca Nurse and Francis Nurse: A respected elderly couple Giles Corey: An elderly farmer Sarah Good: A poor woman Ezekiel Cheever : A local tailor appointed as clerk of the court Marshal Willard: A local law enforcement officer Judge Hathorne: The local magistrate Deputy-Governor Danforth: The Deputy-Governor of Massachusetts, brought in from Boston to preside over the Salem trials
Time and Place The Crucible takes place in the Puritan settlement of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. The village is located about 15 miles north of Boston.
THE BASICS
-3-
The Story Act I, Scene i: Reverend Samuel Parris's young daughter Betty has taken ill after Parris caught her, his niece Abigail, other older girls dancing in the woods with Tituba, his slave from Barbados. He suspects that the Devil may be involved and has summoned Reverend John Hale, an expert from a nearby town. Hale urges caution at first, but as villagers gather and questions mount, the girls begin to cast accusations of witchcraft. Act I, Scene ii: At home eight days later, John and Elizabeth Proctor discuss the court proceedings that are now underway in Salem. Their current servant Mary Warren is taking part, and their previous servant Abigail is the leader of the group of girls who provide evidence of witchcraft to the court. Elizabeth is uneasy, since she dismissed Abigail after catching her and John having a romantic tryst. Mary returns with a gift for Elizabeth, a poppet that she made to pass the time in court. Hale arrives and asks the couple about the depth of their faith. Soon after, officials of the court take Elizabeth away. She has been accused of witchcraft by Abigail, and the poppet will be strong evidence against her. Act II, Scene i: Five weeks later, Proctor meets Abigail in the woods on the night before his wife goes to trial. He threatens to reveal her as a fraud if she doesn't recant her accusations. She refuses, calling him a hypocrite. Act II, Scene ii: Two weeks later, after Elizabeth has been convicted of witchcraft, Proctor brings Mary to the court with a deposition claiming that the girls are only pretending to be afflicted by witchcraft. DeputyGovernor Danforth, the presiding judge, reluctantly agrees to hear her testimony. But when the other girls turn their attacks on Mary, she rejoins them to save herself and accuses Proctor. While Hale loudly denounces the proceedings, Danforth sends Proctor to jail. Act II, Scene iii: Three months later, Hale comes to the jail to plead with the men and women who will be hanged the next morning. He wants them to confess to save their lives, even if they have done nothing wrong. Proctor dictates a confession, but he cannot bear to sign his name to it.
EXPLORATIONS
-4-
Wolves A Note from Director R.H. Thomson The Crucible is a story about a community whose fear makes it self-destruct. In the community’s rush to judgment, innocents are trampled. When I was five, my brother told me there were wolves in our basement and I believed him. Our bedroom was at the top of the basement stairs and at night I lay awake in fear. R.H. Thomson
Of all the emotions, fear is the loudest and the most destructive. Fear’s crying can deafen reason and render unquestionable evidence irrelevant. Making sure that every basement light was on, I looked in every corner but found no evidence of wolves. Still, I believed. After decades of declining crime rates in Canada, including rates of violent crime, why are we now more afraid of crime? Perhaps our fear reflex dominates our more reasonable instincts since it comes from our primal roots. Perhaps caution, prudence, and foresight are evolved reflexes. I have a particular disrespect for those who traffic in fear, either on the local level by inflating crime stories on news programmes to help the bottom line or on the national level by fearmongering to leverage power. Some prudent voices have been heard in desperate situations. When referring to Germany’s recent decision to accept 800,000 refugees from the
EXPLORATIONS
-5-
millions of Syrians escaping the destruction in their homeland, Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “Fear has never been a good advisor, neither in our personal lives nor in our society.” There were no wolves in our basement. My brother had planted the thought in my head, but it was my fear that had trapped it there. The Crucible’s tale is particularly timely.
Puritanism Puritanism is a form of Christianity that originated in England in the early 16th century. Members were Calvinists who felt that the Protestant Reformation had not gone far enough to “purify” the Church of England. They sought to cleanse the church of what they saw as the corruption and excesses of Catholic rituals and idolatry, placing an emphasis instead on the Bible, individual conscience, and living a Godly life. After years of persecution and intolerance in England, Puritans began to set sail for the new colonies of America in order to set up their own model society based entirely on the ideals of the reformed church. They arrived at Plymouth on the Mayflower in 1620 and at Massachusetts Bay near Salem ten years later. Between 1620 and 1640, approximately 20,000 Puritans settled in the New England colonies.
"Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor" by William Halsall
The Puritan religion is based on a set of five essential beliefs that are derived from Calvinist theology. These five points are often referred to by the acronym TULIP:
EXPLORATIONS
-6-
Total Depravity: The belief that all men are born enslaved to sin as a result of Adam’s Original Sin against God. Unconditional Election: The belief that God has already predetermined, through his mercy, those who will receive eternal salvation. There is nothing one can do to earn one’s way into His Grace through virtue, merit, or faith. Limited Atonement: The belief that the death of Jesus Christ atones only for the sins of those previously elected by God for salvation, and not for those of all mankind. Irresistible Grace: The belief that one cannot resist the grace of God. The willingness and ability to obey His will, abide by faith, and feel His presence are signs of being within his grace. Perseverance of the Saints: The belief that once someone has been saved by God, this cannot be reversed.
Life in Colonial Salem In the 17th century, most colonial New England towns were formed around the Puritan church, and therefore there was little separation of church and state. The meeting hall acted as both the town council chambers and the church. All voting members of the community had to make a public statement of their faith. Civic officials, magistrates, and other local government representatives were all appointed by members of the church. Local ministers held great political powers. Within the Puritan community, God and worship were central to daily life, and religion was at the centre of political and social order. Puritans followed a routine of daily prayer, with church services several times a
EXPLORATIONS
-7-
week. Self-control and hard work were seen as signs of faithfulness
and
selection
among God’s elect; whereas indulgences such as laughing, dancing, chance,
joking, and
games
theatre
of
were
forbidden as sinful. Drinking alcohol
was
permitted
moderation,
but
moderation
were
order seen
in and as
methods of keeping demons and the Devil at bay. Children were expected to obey
The central aisle and pulpit of the Old Ship Church in Hingham, MA, a Puritan church built in 1681 (Library of Congress)
the strict authority of their parents and to follow their example of hard work, discipline, and conformity. Toys and games were extremely limited as these were seen as sinful. Education was important for both boys and girls so that they could read, write, and interpret the Bible. It was not uncommon for children to be sent to stay with other families as apprentices or to learn a trade. The average age of marriage was higher in Puritan communities than inother immigrant colonies – 26 for men and 22 for women. Salem is located on the northern shore of Massachusetts Bay, at the mouth of the Naumkeag River, about 15 miles north of Boston. The early Puritan colonists of the area maintained relatively peaceful relationships with the original Native American owners of the land, but these soured as more Puritans arrived and their settlements expanded. By the late 17th century, violent conflicts were not uncommon in parts on New England, and a series of wars between the English and the French and their Native American allies sent an influx of refugees from Maine and upstate New York into Massachussetts, creating an atmosphere of tension and fear.
EXPLORATIONS
-8-
By 1692, when the events of The Crucible take place, the area had become developed into two distinct districts: Salem Village and Salem Town. Salem Village was a fast-growing farming area, while Salem Town, to the south, was a port of wealthier merchants engaged in international trade, fishing, and shipbuilding. It is estimated that the population of the combined area was about 2,000 residents. There was considerable division between Salem Village and Salem Town on economic and religious issues. Many of the farmers of Salem Village believed the worldliness and affluence of Salem Town’s merchant class threatened their Puritan values. Meanwhile, merchants in Salem Town grew resentful of the fact that the majority of the available land was owned by Salem Village farmers, leaving the town dependent on the agricultural community for food. In 1672, members of Salem Village elected to establish their own church hall and elect their own local minister, despite objections from Salem Town. In 1689, after a number of failed attempts to retain a permanent minister, they elected Reverend Samuel Parris as the minister of Salem Village. Parris was an orthodox Puritan who denounced the worldly ways of Salem Town. His impassioned sermons contributed to the atmosphere of tension that preceded the witch trials of 1692.
Map indicating areas of European settlement in North America, 1702 (Wikimedia Commons user Magicpiano)
EXPLORATIONS
-9-
Carved out of the Wilderness An Interview with Set Designer Cameron Porteous Cameron Porteous is one of Canada’s most distinguished scenic designers. He has designed at nearly every major theatre across the country, and served as head of design at Vancouver Playhouse for a decade and the Shaw Festival for nearly two. He has also worked extensively in film and television, including his
Emmy
design
for
Award-winning Beethoven
Lives
Upstairs. In 2001, he was art director for the miniseries Salem Witch Trials. Porteous’s set design for The Crucible doesn’t only look like a structure from the colonial era; it’s also built a bit like one. His
Cameron Porteous
concept comes from historical barn-raising practices, in which an entire community gathered to build something that no single family could manage on their own. The set, a two-storey design made from rough-cut cedar, will be constructed live by the show’s cast during each performance. What was behind the idea to have the actors build the set onstage? Well firstly, that was an accident in a way. It had to do with [director] R.H. [Thomson]’s vision for the show. Arthur Miller saw the play taking place in a black space, but R.H. sees it as a space in the forest. The forest is very important to him. At the beginning of the show, he’s created what we’re calling a prologue, where we actually see some of the dancing in the forest that they talk about later on. R.H. wants to see that to set it all up, so he needs to be able to start outside in the forest. That dancing can’t happen inside a house.
EXPLORATIONS
- 10 -
Secondly, I showed R.H. some pictures of barn-building through the centuries, of big beams being lifted up by people with ropes and ladders, and he was fascinated by that. He took the idea and developed it into the concept we have now, which I’m very thrilled with. The actors construct the set between the scenes and they all seem to be having fun with it. One of the things R.H. has done, and this is the actor in him, is that he’s actually made it not just about building a set. He’s made it about the actors themselves. He’s commissioned all this music, some settings of hymns, so that the actors are singing while they’re building this barn. It becomes a very communal exercise for them based on a religious philosophy. They took to it like ducks to water. So that’s how it got started. As well, if you look at the history, this play takes place only around 70 years after the landing of the Mayflower. So we’re not talking about 300-year-old stuff from an antique store here. It’s all brand new. John Proctor says “come and help me drag my timber.” He’s still building! So I wanted everything to look hand-built and new, as if it had been freshly carved out of the wilderness.
Preliminary set design model by Cameron Porteous for The Crucible
EXPLORATIONS
- 11 -
The image of a barn-raising is central to this production. Where did that Puritan belief in working together come from? You have to realize that out of the hundred-and-some people who came across on the Mayflower, only 33 survived. Some died at sea, but most died after they landed, many in the first winter. The community spirit came from the fact that, if they were going to survive, they needed to pull together. It was very simple for them, and it helped that their religious beliefs were communal as well. “If we all get together and pray and help each other, we can survive.” What strategies do you use in the design so that the actors can assemble it on stage? I have to take my hat off to a young technical director I worked with years ago in Vancouver who put a set together using a system of pegs, dowels, and mortise-and-tenon joints. For that play, we needed to have something constructed fast and we couldn’t come out with power tools in the middle of the show. He was British, and he had grown up with certain types of old-fashioned carpentry that they still used there in the theatre. So I’ve refined some of that concept for this show. We’re using some very old construction techniques. When I worked on the series Salem Witch Trials, I got to study some barns in Upper Canada Village that were 200 years old and still standing. They had beams fourteen inches square, huge mortise joints, held together with dowels of oak and maple. No nails or screws anywhere. In a windstorm, these barns would creak and crack. But for 200 years, they haven’t blown down. It really works. This set is as strong as an elephant.
"We left his house to walk in the woods under dripping branches, amid the odor of decay and regeneration that a long rain drives up from the earth in a cold country forest." –Arthur Miller on his walk with Elia Kazan (see pg. 20)
EXPLORATIONS
- 12 -
The Devil’s Malice Witchcraft Accusations in New England and Beyond Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is based on the witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts. Hysteria over witchcraft swept through the town starting in February 1692. By the end of summer, around one-tenth of the community’s 2,000 people had been accused of witchcraft, and a special tribunal had executed 20 people. In the 17th century, when the Puritans fled religious persecution in England and colonized Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, they brought along their early modern European superstitions about witchcraft. Settled precariously on the edge of what they perceived as a vast and threatening wilderness, the Puritans believed that dark forces lurked close at hand to test their pious community. Massachusetts was particularly troubled by witches, the sworn agents of the Devil who delighted in tormenting the faithful. The pervasiveness of witchcraft was taken as a clear sign of the righteousness of the colony. “Where will the Devil show the most malice,” wrote Puritan minister Cotton Mather, “but where he is hated, and hateth most?” In Puritan New England, any type of misfortune might be blamed on witchcraft: a poor harvest, a runaway cow, a mischievous child who laughs
A woodcut depicting witches dancing around a central figure, c. 1700
EXPLORATIONS
- 13 -
in church. The Devil was fond of sending strange illnesses; the few doctors available outside of Boston had limited resources and
little
training,
so
an
unusual ailment could lead to a supernatural diagnosis as easily as a medical one. Books and pamphlets that were written by influential clergymen shocked readers with vivid eyewitness accounts of witchcraft, before helpfully cataloguing the signs and strategies of the Devil’s agents.
Puritan minister Cotton Mather, a leading authority on witches, c. 1700
These were some of the signs used to identify a witch: • The inability to recite the Lord’s Prayer aloud without error • Special knowledge of herbs, healing remedies, or midwifery • Unusual freckles, moles, or bruises • Tics, tremors, seizures, or other movement abnormalities • Owning dolls or other lifelike figures, which could be used to cast curses • Speaking to dogs or cats, which could be demons called familiar spirits Crucially, it was widely believed that witches could torment their victims in visions and dreams. The admission of so-called “spectral evidence” in court proceedings was a controversial practice, since these attacks could not be witnessed by anyone beyond the afflicted. The penalty for witchcraft was death – “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” reads Exodus 22:18 in the King James Bible. The typical means of execution was hanging, but pressing and drowning were also used. Only a confession, seen as a sign of God’s hand at work, would save the life of a convicted witch.
EXPLORATIONS
- 14 -
The majority of the accused were women, since Puritan society was uncomfortable with sexuality on the whole and held deeply engrained beliefs that women were morally and spiritually weaker than men as a result of Eve’s temptation of Adam. All those who lived on the margins of the society were vulnerable to charges of witchcraft: the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, and people of non-European backgrounds. The last recorded North American witch trial took place in 1878; it was a civil case (coincidentally heard in Salem) in which an early adherent of Christian Science was accused of malicious mesmerism. But accusations of witchcraft have not gone away. Although the exact statistics are difficult to pin down, researchers with United Nations refugee and human rights agencies estimate that thousands of supposed witches are still targeted each year in many parts of the world. They face abuse, expulsion from their communities, and even murder. As in the past, the victims are disproportionately women.
An image of witches being hanged, c. 1655
EXPLORATIONS
- 15 -
The Salem Witch Trials The Salem witch trials were one among many instances of witch trials in the early American colonies, but the widespread accusations and large number of executions made them the most notorious example. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible sticks closely to the historical record in some respects, but the playwright
did
take
many
creative liberties. Here’s what happened, based on transcripts and historical studies.
In January of 1692, Reverend Samuel
Parris's
Reverend Samuel Parris
daughter
Elizabeth, age 9, and niece Abigail Williams, age 11, started having "fits” that involved screaming, contortions, and uttering strange sounds. Another girl, Ann Putnam, age 11, experienced similar episodes. On February 29, under pressure from magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, the girls blamed three women for afflicting them: the Parris’s slave Tituba, Sarah Osborne, and a homeless beggar named Sarah Good. After several days of interrogation, Osborne and Good steadfastly proclaimed their innocence; however, Tituba confessed, saying, "The Devil came to me and bid me serve him." She admitted that she had signed the Devil’s book and that she recognized the names of several others in it, including Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good.
EXPLORATIONS
- 16 -
By March, more women had been accused including Martha Corey
and
These
Rebecca
accusations
Nurse. greatly
concerned the community since they
were
respected church.
both
members If
they
deeply of
could
the be
witches, then no one was above suspicion. Sarah Good's 4-yearold daughter was questioned, and her timid answers were construed as a confession that implicated her mother. In April, Deputy-Governor Danforth and his assistants began attending the hearings. Dozens of people from Salem and other nearby villages were brought in for
"Rebecca Nurse in Chains," an 1893 illustration by Freeland A. Carter
questioning, including Elizabeth Proctor. When Elizabeth’s husband John objected during the proceedings and accused the young girls of deception, he too was arrested. On May 27, 1692, Governor William Phips ordered the establishment of a Special Court of Oyer and Terminer (“to hear and determine”) to prosecute the cases of those in jail. The first case brought to the special court was Bridget Bishop, an older woman known for her provocative behaviour and for having been previously accused and acquitted of witchcraft. She was found guilty and, on June 10, became the first person hanged on what was later called Gallows Hill. Five days later, respected minister Cotton Mather wrote a letter imploring the court not to allow spectral evidence – testimony that a person’s spectral shape had appeared to a witness in dreams or visions. His request
EXPLORATIONS
- 17 -
was ignored and five people were sentenced and hanged in July, five more in August, and eight in September. In August, both Elizabeth and John Proctor were tried and condemned to death. Elizabeth’s execution was stayed as she was pregnant at the time, but John Proctor was hanged on August 19th. On September 19th, 81-year-old Giles Corey was pressed to death for refusing to confess or enter a plea to charges of witchcraft. On October 3rd, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather’s father and thenpresident of Harvard University, also denounced the use of spectral evidence: "It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned," he proclaimed. Governor Phips, in response to Mather's plea and (and perhaps to his own wife being questioned) dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer on October 29. He replaced it with a Superior Court of Judicature, which disallowed spectral evidence. Only 3 out of 56 defendants were condemned and all those imprisoned on witchcraft charges were pardoned by May, 1693.
An 1876 engraving depicting the 1692 Salem witch trials by William A. Crafts
EXPLORATIONS
- 18 -
Following the trials and executions, many of the people involved quickly confessed error and guilt. On January 14, 1697, the General Court ordered a day of fasting and soul-searching for the tragedy of Salem. In 1702, the court declared the trials unlawful, and in 1711, the colony passed a bill restoring the rights and good names of those accused and granting ÂŁ600 restitution to their heirs. The state of Massachusetts formally apologized in 1957 for the events of 1692. In August 1992, to mark the 300th anniversary of the trials, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel dedicated the Witch Trials Memorial in Salem. There are many different theories about the causes of Salem witch trials. Here are a few: Greed: Those convicted of witchcraft forfeited all their property, and much of the land ended up in the hands of the accusers. Rivalry: There was a tense rivalry between Salem Village and Salem Town in advance of the events of 1692. Many of the accusers were allied with the agricultural and more conservative religious members of Salem Village, while many of the accused were aligned with the less conservative merchant-class community of Salem Town. Fear: Natural fears from living alongside a vast wilderness under threat from native attack, smallpox outbreaks, and imminent wars with French settlers created a climate prone to hysteria. Adolescence: Young girls living under strict moral and social codes would have been naturally imaginative and seeking an outlet for attention and a degree of self-determined power. Poisoning: Some scholars suggest that a damp, warm spring in 1691 may have contaminated the rye crop with a fungus called ergot, that would have been baked into breads over the winter. This fungus can cause stupor, convulsions, twitches, hallucinations, and other physical and mental symptoms.
EXPLORATIONS
- 19 -
Naming Names Arthur Miller and the Red Scare Some 260 years after the trials in Salem, witchcraft was on Arthur Miller’s mind as he drove north from New York to visit his friend Elia Kazan in Connecticut. In the early 1950s, fears about the worldwide spread of communist ideology had reached fever pitch, and on the home front, high-profile espionage trials of civilians like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had triggered a wave of paranoia known as the Red Scare. Soviet spies could be anywhere, and anyone who expressed left-wing sympathies might be a danger to America. “What I sought was a metaphor,” Miller later wrote, “that would penetrate to the centre of this miasma.” In her recent article in The New Yorker, historian Stacy Schiff describes how the Salem witch trials fueled themselves by consuming their own opposition: “It bordered on heresy to question the validity of witchcraft, the legitimacy of the evidence, or the wisdom of the court. The skeptic was a marked man.” And when even the most respected members of the community could face charges, Schiff writes, “it could be wise to name names before anyone mentioned yours.”
Sen. Joseph McCarthy makes a presentation at a Senate subcommittee hearing in 1954 (U.S. Senate)
EXPLORATIONS
- 20 -
In Miller’s day, politicians such as Senator Joseph McCarthy had capitalized on the Cold War’s climate of fear, casting themselves as crusaders against communism. McCarthy loudly proclaimed that the U.S. State Department was “infested with communists,” while the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (known as HUAC) conducted a farreaching inquisition into influential Americans with supposed ties to communism. The evidence supporting these accusations was often vague, but it was difficult to call the proceedings into question without casting suspicion on oneself. Both McCarthy and HUAC used heavy-handed tactics with the witnesses they subpoenaed into hearings. The dreaded question generally came in the form of: “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” Refusing to answer led to contempt charges, while denial risked accusations of perjury. Most importantly, those who cooperated with the interrogators were then asked under oath to name the names of other subversives, who would be subpoenaed in the everwidening investigation. In 1947, HUAC had investigated the Hollywood film industry in a campaign that led to the blacklisting of more than a hundred artists who refused to cooperate with the committee. In the early 1950s, HUAC turned some of its attention to the New York theatre community. On a walk through the forest surrounding Kazan’s home in April 1952, Miller’s friend confessed that he had cooperated with HUAC in order to save his career. Kazan, who had directed the premieres of Miller’s plays All My Sons and Death of a Salesman, carried a Party card for a few months in the mid-1930s while working with the Group Theatre and had named the names of eight artists from that company, including playwright Clifford Odets. Miller was shaken. “It was a quiet calamity opening before me in the woods,” he recalled in his autobiography, “because I felt my sympathy going toward him and at the same time I was afraid of him. Had I been of his generation, he would have had to sacrifice me as well.”
EXPLORATIONS
- 21 -
After leaving Kazan, Miller drove straight to Salem to research the play he would call The Crucible. He spent many days poring over the original court transcripts of the witch trials, mouthing the words to get a feel for the dialogue. Miller took some creative liberties, but the characters and events in The Crucible are based on the historical record. Given the political dangers of the times, the play received a range of responses upon its premiere in 1953. Miller wrote that, on opening night, “people
with
whom
I
had
some
fairly
close
professional
acquaintanceships passed me by as though I were invisible,” wary of being publically associated with a controversial figure. On another night later in the run, the play received a particularly charged reaction: “The audience, upon John Proctor’s execution, stood up and remained silent for a couple of minutes, with heads bowed. The Rosenbergs were at that moment being electrocuted in Sing Sing.” The success of The Crucible brought Miller himself to the attention of the authorities. In late 1953, he was refused a passport to attend the play’s European premiere in Brussels, with the U.S. State Department saying
it
was
against
the
national interest. The New York Times reported that Miller “said he could not understand how his presence in Europe could have affected the United States, adding that he hoped his plays would make more friends for American culture than the State Department.”
Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe in 1957 (Kingsport Times-News)
EXPLORATIONS
- 22 -
In 1956, Miller was finally subpoenaed by HUAC. Although he had never been a member, Miller had given a speech at a Communist Party writers’ meeting in the 1930s. His lawyers suggested that the hearing was timed to coincide with his high-profile marriage to Marilyn Monroe. When asked under oath, Miller refused to name any names and was found guilty of contempt. The conviction was eventually overturned on appeal, but Miller was profoundly affected by the experience. With the hope of making such ordeals a thing of the past, he became a leader of PEN-International, an organization that defends freedom of expression and advocates for writers who are harassed or imprisoned for their beliefs.
About the Playwright Born in 1915, Arthur Miller was raised in a wealthy New York family that lost nearly everything in the 1929 stock market crash. He worked various blue-collar jobs to put himself through university, where he took up
playwriting.
His
first
Broadway success was the moral drama All My Sons in 1947. Death of a Salesman, his classic critique of the American Dream, premiered to great acclaim in 1949, and The Crucible followed in 1953. His later plays include A View from the Bridge, Incident at Vichy, and The Price.
Whether
writing
family
or
political
Miller
is
celebrated
about
struggles, for
his
nuanced portrayals of people wrestling with their moral and societal responsibilities. He died in 2005.
Arthur Miller in 1966 (Dutch National Archives)
EXPLORATIONS
- 23 -
Glossary Barbados The English colonized the small island of Barbados in the eastern Caribbean Sea in 1625. Throughout the 17th century, the island’s thriving sugar cane trade became the focal point for the import of West African slaves. By century’s end, the import of slaves through the Caribbean islands had extended into the American colonies. Covenant A central element of Puritan theology was the notion of the sacred covenant, or contract, between God and his chosen people. This covenant ideology extended between individual and the church, ministers and their congregations, and families and their communities. Crucible A crucible is a small container in which metals are heated intensely until they melt down; metaphorically, it is any difficult challenge that reveals someone’s character. Devil’s book It was a common folkloric belief that witches entered a pact with the Devil by signing their names in blood in his book. Goody A Puritan form of address for a married woman; a shortened form of “Goodwife.” Poppet A small child, or a doll in the figure of a human. In folk-magic and witchcraft, a doll could be used to transfer spells onto a specific person.
EXPLORATIONS
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Press A method of torture or execution in which heavy stones or other objects are placed on a person. Giles Corey is the only person known to have been pressed to death in American history. Quakers Members of the religious group also known as the Religious Society of Friends. Quakers reject formal ministry and set forms of worship and promote the idea of “inner light” and equality in their membership. Quakers were widely resented as radicals and heretics, and were often persecuted by Puritans in America during the 17th century. Shovelboard A precursor to shuffleboard, this game used to be played by the English upper classes on long wooden tables. Players used long sticks to push (or “shove”) coins or metal weights on to a scoring surface at the other end of the table. “What book is that?” The Malleus Maleficarum (translated as The Hammer of Witches) is a medieval treatise on
how
to
identify
and
prosecute witches. Written in 1486 by German clergymen Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger,
the
book
was
condemned by the Catholic church. But it still became the handbook for the detection and punishment of witches throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.
A page from a manuscript of The Hammer of Witches (wikimedia user Victuallers)
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Conversation Starters
Do you have any superstitions?
Have you ever had a spiritual, paranormal, or other experience beyond everyday reality?
Would you lie to protect someone you love?
Have you ever made an important decision based on fear?
Which do you value more: your well-being or your good reputation?
What is the difference between justice and revenge?
How much should religious values influence our laws or legal processes?
Have you ever been accused of something that you didn't do? How did you respond?
If you have nothing to hide, do you need any protection from government investigations?
Do you think those accused of witchcraft in the play received fair trials? Why or why not?
Most of the accused in the Salem witch trials were women and marginalized people, including the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, and those of non-European backgrounds. Why do you think this was the case? Do you see any similar patterns today?
In his recent book So You've Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson writes that public shaming on today’s social media stems from our "desire to do something good" but can sometimes run amok. If you have done so, what do you feel while taking part in the online shaming of a public figure? Have you ever shared a story on social media before you had all the facts?
"Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world." –Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Mass Hysteria Mass hysteria is a term for collective delusions or compulsions that spread quickly through a community due to fear and anxiety. These outbreaks tend to affect small communities with highly regimented lifestyles. Some of the earliest mass hysterias on the historical record, for example, took hold in medieval nunneries where nuns developed strange behaviour en masse: dancing, biting, crude language, or even meowing like cats. In our day, factories and schools are particularly susceptible to mass hysteria. Here are some recent examples: The June Bug Epidemic In 1962, workers in a U.S. textile factory reported symptoms of numbness, nausea, dizziness, and vomiting. The rumour began that there was a type of bug in the factory that would bite its victims and cause them to develop the symptoms quickly spread. The mysterious illness spread to 62 employees, some of whom were hospitalized. Research by company physicians and experts from the U.S. Public Health Service Communicable Disease Center concluded that the case was one of mass hysteria caused by anxiety. No evidence was ever found for a bug which could cause the flu-like symptoms, nor did all workers demonstrate bites. Satanic Scandal in Martensville, Saskatchewan In 1992, a mother in the small community of Martensville alleged that a local woman who ran a babysitting service and daycare centre had sexually abused her two-year-old child. Police began an investigation and the allegations escalated into claims of satanic ritual abuse. More than a dozen people, including five police officers from three different forces, were charged in connection with running a Satanic cult called the Brotherhood of the Ram, which allegedly practiced ritualized sexual abuse. When a Royal Canadian Mounted Police task force took over the investigation, it concluded the original investigation was clouded by "emotional hysteria." The interviews of the children were found to be
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mishandled: the questions were leading, and the children had been praised for giving incriminating answers. The baseless panic over a Satanic cult paralleled several other cases around the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Twitching Teens at Le Roy High School In 2001, 18 students from the Junior-Senior High School in Le Roy, New York, all but one of them female, began experiencing mysterious verbal outbursts, tics, and seizures. After numerous medical tests for viral, bacterial, or toxic causes for the symptoms, the teens were diagnosed with mass psychogenic illness, a type of mass hysteria.
Have you ever felt swept up in a crowd? When someone describes how they’re feeling, do you ever start to feel the same way yourself?
"Dance at Molenbeek" by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, a depiction of medieval dancing mania
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Big Reads from Calgary Public Library By Rosemary Griebel
A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience, by Emerson W. Baker Non-fiction, 2015. An absorbing account of the Salem witch trials, showing how not one, but many factors caused the crisis. Baker knowledgeably shows how politics, religious attitudes, morals, family feuds, superstition, business practices, class, and frontier wars converged to create a "perfect storm" of witchcraft fears. He ends the book with an explicit comparison between 17th-century worries about witches and 21st-century concerns about terrorists.
Death in Salem: The Private Lives Behind the 1692 Witch Hunt, by Diane E. Foulds Non-fiction, 2010. A compelling "who's who" of Salem witchcraft, examining the often tragic personal lives of the leading players, from the "bewitched" girls to the innocents they charged. These compact portraits paint a picture of a repressed, paranoid society in the midst of chaotic change.
Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials, by Stephanie Hemphill Fiction, 2010. Were the Salem witch trials just a case of mean girls gone bad? A fictionalized account of the Salem witch trials, told in verse from the perspective of Mercy Lewis, Margaret Walcott, and Ann Putnam, Jr.
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The Modern Guide to Witchcraft: Your Complete Guide to Witches, Covens, & Spells, by Skye Alexander Non-fiction, 2014. Need help to find new love or a better job, get a cranky boss to lighten up, release stress, or simply find a parking space? Spellcraft expert Skye Alexander helps you tap into your own magic and create incantations, potions, rituals, and charms.
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, by Jon Ronson Non-fiction, 2015. A captivating and humorous look at the dark side of contemporary shaming. Ronson believes that we are living through “a great renaissance of public shaming” thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. Ronson’s overall point is that the virtual pitchfork mob that creates Twitter storms has a power that no other form of shaming previously had.
The Paranoid’s Pocket Guide, by Cameron Tuttle Non-fiction, 1997. Are you worried sick? If not, maybe you should be. Because that iron may have been left on at home, an angry adolescent may have spat on your fast food burger, and drawstring pants could cause your most embarrassing moment. Including hundreds of bizarre-but-true things that can get you, this compact volume will induce nervous page flipping and turn even the most snug and secure folks into bona fide paranoiacs. Click on the book covers to check availability at Calgary Public Library!
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Local Stories: Reading The Crucible in Tripoli By Isabelle Emery On September 1, 1969, centuries after the Salem witch trials, my father, my sister Roseline, and I woke up to loud bangs during the night. Our hotel had been surrounded by armed soldiers. My family had lived in Tripoli, Libya, for three years under the reign of King Idris. Roseline was 12 years old and I was 13. My father had completed his contract with the Libyan Health
Isabelle Emery
Service and was about to return us to England. But unfortunately for my father’s plans, Colonel Gadhafi had just deposed the ailing monarch. We were trapped in that downtown hotel for ten days, during which the radios only played Arabic military music, the limited television service was blocked, and no newspapers were published. The only entertainment I had, apart from peering at the soldiers from the balcony until they got bored and sprayed bullets to show off, was to read the single book in my possession: my father’s battered copy of The Crucible. But what a treasure it proved to be as I tried to understand the actions of the citizens and army in response to the change in political power. The people I saw from my window in Tripoli did not voice support for or against a revolution until they were assured that change had indeed taken place. But once it became known that the soldiers surrounding our hotel were revolutionary, huge crowds gathered on the streets below to celebrate the revolution.
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This amazed me, because I had previously seen similar crowds line the streets to praise King Idris and pray for his health. The Crucible provided an answer to my dilemma. There is a tendency for people to adopt the beliefs of others as their own – especially when voicing your own opinions and doubts could lead to danger and ostracism from your community. And at the same time, as a thirteen-year-old girl living in a maledominated society that censored any expressions of women’s sexual desire, I could identify with Abigail’s difficulties. As a powerless woman and servant, she has limited means of obtaining what she desperately wants. Isabelle Emery is a Canadian by choice. She has attended Theatre Calgary for more than thirty years.
Spotlight Saturday Dig deeper into the ideas! Join us in the lobby after our fourth Saturday matinee for lively conversations around the themes of our shows. Our Spotlight Saturday events are free and open to all – no ticket required.
Isabelle Emery On Reading The Crucible during the 1969 Libyan Revolution Saturday, November 7, at around 5pm in the Max Bell Theatre lobby
Visit theatrecalgary.com/artists-and-learning to learn more about our interACTive programming
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Sources Curtis, Ken. “Who Were the Puritans?” Christianity.com. www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1601-1700/whowere-the-puritans-11630087.html Demos, John. A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. Galvin, Rachel. “Arthur Miller.” National Endowment for the Humanities. 2011. www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/arthur-miller-biography Horowitz, Mitch. “The Persecution of Witches, 21st-Century Style.” The New York Times. July 4, 2014. Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. New York: WW Norton, 1998. Matin, Luke. “The Witch Trials.” 2009. www.witchcraftandwitches.com/trials.html Miller, Arthur. Timebends: A Life. New York: Grove, 1987. “Playwright Arthur Miller Refused Visa For a Visit to Brussels to See His Play.” The New York Times. Mar 31, 1954. Schiff, Stacy. “The Witches of Salem.” The New Yorker. Sep 7, 2015.
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transciption Project salem.lib.virginia.edu/home.html An online archive maintained by the University of Virginia that contains a wealth of primary source material, including the original court records of the trials.