The Crucible playbill

PL AYBILL the crucible

the crucible arthur miller }{

approximate running time: 2 hours & 30 minutes. there will be one 20 minute intermission

ARTIST NOTE: LAURA CONDLLN I love this play.

Written by one of America’s greatest playwrights in the early 1950s, when the American government was conducting its own witch hunt for Communists, it examines the power of false accusations and the evils of mindless persecution; when personal grievances collide with superstition, strangling reason and fuelling widespread panic and fear.

It’s good stuff. And it fascinates me that a play, written in the ’50s and echoing events of the 1600s, can hold the mirror up to our own troubling times.

rehearsal halls are hives of creativity and passion, and through a tradition of mentorship and training they have grown a strong family tree.

What a gift then, that you, and I, are able to join them for this harrowing journey.

L AURA CONDLLN, Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible.

I also love rehearsing.

The Crucible rehearsal days are quiet and dark – not just because of the story we’re telling – but as Albert says “I like to rehearse this play in darkness” ... so it is quite literally... dark. Up to this point, we have been focussing on the intimate scenes between Elizabeth and John Proctor – exploring that messy, complicated and very human world under Albert’s gentle guidance. Today the entire company joins us. They have been inhabiting the darkly funny world of Tartuffe, and the achingly beautiful world of A Tender Thing, and arrive now in Salem – how fortunate we are to work in such a thrilling repertory environment.

I look around the room, and am honoured to be among them all. Unlike the community in the play that is fracturing, this Soulpepper community is cohesive and generous. Talent runs deep here,

TIDBITS • T he

Crucible has been translated into many languages and found resonance all over the world. Miller liked to tell a story of a Chinese woman he met who told him that when she saw the play in the late ’80s in Shanghai, it was such a note-perfect portrait of the Cultural Revolution, she couldn’t believe a non-Chinese had written it.

• I n

1957 Jean-Paul Sartre adapted the play into a film that was called Les Sorcières de Salem.

• M iller

himself adapted the play for the screen in 1996. It starred his son-in-law Daniel Day-Lewis. It netted Miller his one and only Academy Award Nomination (for Best Screenplay).

CREATIVE TEAM

THE CRUCIBLE

CAS T Derek Boyes

Rev. Parris

Laura Condlln

Elizabeth Proctor

Frank Cox-O’Connell

Marshall Herrick

Mikaela Davies

Mary Warren

Oliver Dennis

Rev. Hale

Raquel Duffy

Anne Putnam

Peter Fernandes

Eziekel Cheever

Rong Fu

Betty Parris

Katherine Gauthier

Mercy Lewis

Hailey Gillis

Abigail Williams

Gordon Hecht

Deputy

Stuart Hughes

John Proctor

John Jarvis

Oyin Oladejo

Tituba

Colin Palangio

Deputy

Nancy Palk

Rebecca Nurse

Brenda Robins

Martha Corey & Sarah Good

Michael Simpson

Francis Nurse

Judge Hathorne

Sarah Koehn

William Webster

Susanna Walcott

Richard Lam

Hopkins

Giles Corey

Joseph Ziegler

Governor Danforth

Diego Matamoros

Thomas Putnam

Produc t ion Albert Schultz Director

Lorenzo Savoini

Set & Costume Designer

Steven Hawkins

Lighting Designer

John Gzowski

Sound Designer

Kelly McEvenue

Alexander Coach

Simon Fon

Darragh Parsons

Stage Manager

Ashlyn Ireland

Assistant Stage Manager

Jordana Weiss

Fight Director

Apprentice Stage Manager

SOULPEPPER PRODUCT ION Wigs Running, Head of Hair & Makeup

Jacqueline Robertson-Cull

Wardrobe Coordinator & Dresser

Natalie Swiercz

Tracy Taylor

Erika Connor

Lead Wardrobe Coordinator

Ilana Harendorff

Sewer

Props Builder

Joanne Lamberton

Paul Boddum Lisa Summers

Production Assistant

Cutter

Barbara Nowakowski

First Hand

Scenic Painters

Will Sutton

Props Buyer

Greg Chambers

Nicholas Webster

Ellie Furtney

Wardrobe Intern

Carpenter

s p e c i a l t h a n k s: C a n a di a n Op e r a C om pa n y.

The Crucible is presented by special arrangements with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York, New York

s t ua rt h ugh e s. p hoto: c y l l a von t i e de m a n n

BACKGROUND NOTES

D

uring the Cold War, fear of communism had the United States in its grip. In 1947, the government created the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to investigate this threat (among others). Anyone who had even attended a Communist Party meeting was under suspicion. Inflated rhetoric fuelled an ever-more passionate and polarized debate.

Elia Kazan, Miller’s friend who had directed Death of a Salesman, appeared before HUAC and named names (accused other people of being communists). The friendship between the two men never recovered. Miller channeled his pain and outrage into researching the 1692 Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts. The play that resulted is considered a classic of the American canon, but its premiere put Miller in the crosshairs. He was compelled to testify before HUAC. He refused to name names, was convicted of “contempt of Congress”, fined, sent to prison, and blacklisted. Though he was later exonerated, what he went through had a lasting effect on him.

Personal experience and historical fact were the seeds but Miller’s social conscience led him to larger themes of truth and righteousness, fear and hysteria, accusation and confession, private appetite and public reputation. The Crucible is set in a Puritan community where church and state are fused; there is no higher authority than God. As Judge Danforth puts it, “A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it.”

In Salem it’s God or the Devil, pure and simple.

But with human beings nothing is that simple.

So what happens when reason and fact become clouded by irrational fear, when the desire to blame others is greater than the need to understand what has happened? Miller looks at these questions from both the private and public point of view. When we first meet Elizabeth Proctor, she is furious with her husband. John has wronged her and though he’s apologized she cannot forgive him. She behaves correctly toward him, but without warmth or generosity, making him feel constantly accused and punished. He expresses his frustration memorably: “Elizabeth, your justice would freeze beer.”

characters toward hysteria. Terrified, they abandon civility and reason in favour of blame and accusation. Hysteria enables them to believe that neighbours with whom they have had longstanding, and mostly peaceful relations are capable of committing unspeakable crimes.

Hysteria, in the guise of religious duty, also permits the characters to indulge old resentments and pursue old grudges. Darker, more twisted emotions and sentiments suddenly have a socially acceptable outlet. The repercussions can be fatal.

If you are one of the accused. If your reputation or your name comes under scrutiny.

In this play Arthur Miller asks us to consider what we stand for, what we would be willing to stand up for. And to consider how easily, in the right situation, with the right pressure, any one of us could be swayed.

play wright biogr aph y Arthur Miller was born in Harlem in 1915 and received a degree in English from the University of Michigan in 1938. After a few years of struggle, his play All My Sons was a success on Broadway, earning him his first Tony Award. Death of a Salesman, arguably his masterpiece, premiered in 1949, winning the Tony and New York Critics Drama Circle Awards as well as the Pulitzer Prize. In 1952, appalled by the anti-communist hysteria fomented by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Miller found a fictional corollary in the Salem, Massachusetts witch trials of 1692. The resulting play, The Crucible was only a modest success initially but it has gone on to become one of his most produced works. Miller engaged in political activism all his life though his artistic output was uneven in later years. Still, memorable plays like A View From the Bridge, After the Fall, and The Price came out in the late 50’s and 60’s. In the 80’s he directed an acclaimed production of Death of a Salesman in China, which he wrote about in his memoir Salesman in Beijing. In the early 2000’s he won Spain’s Asturias Prize for Drama. Arthur Miller died on February 10, 2005 (the 56th anniversary of Salesman’s premiere).

Their private drama is echoed in the larger story about the potential presence of witches in the community, which pushes many of the

Tidbits & Background Notes by 2014 Soulpepper Resident Artist Paula Wing

THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING!

416 866 8666 soulpepper.ca Young Centre for the Performing Arts Toronto Distillery Historic District

Soulpepper is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Scenic Artists and Set Decorators employed by Soulpepper are represented by Local 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. 

Do stay in touch, and please pass the pepper!