The Crucible

Like our production of Macbeth the previous year, I wanted to adapt this old tale to the time in which the allegory was written, to pay homage to Arthur Miller and his message during the McCarthyism period of the 1950’s. This has allowed us to play with the tone of the era, which is usually depicted as very Leave it to Beaver into something much darker. 

There is a reason why this play is a classic, a reason why our children have to read it in school and a reason why it is popular for performance. The Crucible tells the tale of living in a perilous place where, in a moment of panic or fear, a group of people fall into a deadly round of the Blame Game. 

I feel that we, here in America, still live in a world that is designed and dominated by fear. Though we are the Land of the Free, there have been far too many historical and present instances in which fear has infringed on another person's freedoms and their lives. Whether that be fear of the color of someone’s skin, fear of someone’s religious practices or fear of someone’s sexual identity and orientation, the Crucible touches on all of this, thematically. It is our senseless fear of something unknown that then leads into mass hysteria and distrust. 

We are still very much in that world; We just think that we are different and progressed now, but we're not.