The Crucible

The Crucible takes place in the 1690's in Salem Massachusetts. This time period is important to notice because of the witch trials that took place. Basically a person accused of witchcraft was assumed guilty even when brought to trail. The trails during the time were inappropriate and just plain ridiculous as seen in act two of the play. Arthur Miller wrote the play in the 1950's during the time of the Korean War. Bringing to light, the unfair accusations of communism were his intentions. This period of anti communism is known as McCarthyism.

The play is set in the 1690's, however Castleton's version is set in the 1950's. This is the directors choice and it is assumed that his intentions were to bridge the gap between the witch trails of the 1690's and McCarthyism of the 50's. This change in time periods raises many problems, many of which are seen by the audience. The major conflicts are time period specific references in the script. For example, Reverend Parris refers to money as pounds, which is incorrect. In the 50's the American public used dollars. The other obvious conflict is that America did not hang those accused of witch- craft in the 50's. These problems create a blip of rhetorical questioning for the audience. While trying to concentrate on the action on stage one can't help but stop and wonder, why?

The audience is always critiquing and seeking to find patterns. When judged as a whole and critiqued as a whole, noticeable blocking issues are apparent. This production should emphasize the relationships between individuals and groups. The concepts of unity and balance should portray the relationships and help to form the overall feeling of each scene. This production had lots of open space for the actors to move around and utilized simplistic design elements. This can work with and against the actors. In act one much of the action took place in Reverend Parris's home and John Proctor's home. Unity of the community was shown by the amount of characters present on stage. Nearly all the characters in the play were in Reverend Parris's home in the beginning sequence. This helped to unify the characters