Introductory Notes the Crucible

The Crucible Page 1 of 9

Introductory Notes – The Crucible

Welcome to this audio introduction to the Old Vic’s production of The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller and directed by Yaël Farber.

The audio described performance will take place on Thursday 14th August at 7.30pm. There will be a touch tour at 6pm. The introduction will start at 7.15pm and the performance itself at 7.30. The performance lasts approximately 3 hours and 30 minutes, including a 20 minute interval. Your describers are Alison Clarke and Roz Chalmers.

Please meet in the foyer for the touch tour. Touch Tours are completely free and last about 20 minutes. They give you an opportunity to explore the set and handle some of the props. There will also be an opportunity to meet some members of the company who bring the play to the stage. It is essential to book, so please call 020 7981 0981 to reserve your place. If

you’re coming to the tour on your own we can arrange for a member of staff to accompany you. Please also let the box office know if you'd like to bring your guide dog into the auditorium and we will try to offer an aisle seat if one is available. The Front of House staff will be happy to take care of your dog during the performance if you would prefer.

Fifteen minutes before the performance starts we will repeat an edited version of these introductory notes live, so that you can listen to them through the headsets in the auditorium. We will be able to give you an update if there have been any last minute changes to the production, and this will also give you an opportunity to familiarise yourself with the headset controls.

The Crucible is based on true events in Salem, Massachusetts in 1662, when the small, rural, Puritan community was ripped apart by accusations of witchcraft. Arthur Miller writes in his forward to the text of the play:

‘The Salem tragedy developed from a paradox. Simply, it was this: for good purposes, even high purposes, the people of Salem developed a theocracy,

a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies. The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom.

The witch-hunt was not a mere repression. Long-held hatreds of neighbours could now be openly expressed, and vengeance taken, despite the Bible’s charitable injunctions. Land-lust which had been expressed before by constant bickering over boundaries and deeds, could now be elevated to the arena of morality; one could cry witch against one’s neighbour and feel perfectly justified in the bargain. Old scores could be settled on a plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord.’

The auditorium of the Old Vic has been transformed into an in-the-round space. The conventional proscenium arch and stage have disappeared. Instead, the circular acting area is at floor level, about five metres in diameter, surrounded on all sides by banks of seating, bringing the front rows of the audience so close they can almost reach out and touch the actors.

The whole auditorium is absorbed into the production. As we enter, all the lights are dimmed and murky. The only bright colour is provided by the red plush seats awaiting the audience. The ornate pink and gilded decoration that usually greets us is gone, hidden beneath heavy swathes of mottled and mildewed grey fabric, draped haphazardly over all the balcony rails. The effect is one of bleak, oppressive gloom.

There are six walkways which lead on and off the circular playing area, three at the front and three at the rear allowing the actors to walk through the audience to the stage. In the centre at the rear is a tall free-standing doorway. Leading from it, tracks in the grey stone floor mark the edges of a pathway of light which floods from the doorway.

At the back of the stage on the left and right, two narrow rectangular towers about three feet wide soar upwards. These are rough, dark grey, iron structures, rusting and corroded. Each is divided to create three tall narrow sections of equal size. The top two sections of each tower are filled by window panes, some broken. A smoky haze belches from behind each of the towers and drifts across the stage, bringing the scent of burning herbs into the space.

On both sides and at the rear, at the height of the theatre’s balcony seating, walls are suggested by panels of dark red brick set into heavy, corroded iron frames. More grey cloths hang over these.

The floor is dark grey stone, with a trap door on the left. When this is opened a jet of golden light shoots upward and a flight of stairs is revealed leading down to unseen lower levels.

At the beginning of the play the floor is covered by a jumble of twenty-four wooden kitchen chairs in various shapes and sizes. They are placed at random, facing in all directions. One chair lies on its side.

During the performance the cast carry simple items of furniture on and off, such as a bed, a chair or a table, dotting them around the space to suggest the interior of homes, a Quaker meeting house or a cell in the village gaol. These scene changes will be described as they occur.

The lighting in The Crucible is a mixture of dazzling brightness and oppressive gloom. Figures are cast into sharp silhouette by harsh white lights spearing down or glaring from the rear entrance and the sides. At other times the light is low, amber and brooding, forming deep shadows. Tiny motes of dust, like fragments of wheat chaff, float in the air, reminding us that these people are members of a farming community who live close to the earth, to the natural and the supernatural.

The characters in The Crucible are the Puritan residents of Salem and county officials who became caught up in the events of 1662.

There are fifteen main characters and several minor ones.

The clothes of all the girls and women of Salem are uniform and unremarkable. Their dresses are austere; ill fitting and homespun. They wear black, a drab grey-green, grey or navy blue. The dresses appear to be cut from the same pattern: long sleeved, high-necked, with gathered waists, disguising their figures and rendering them anonymous. Their heads are modestly covered, wrapped in dull scarves: grey, black or brown, carefully concealing every strand of hair. The scarves are tied at the back, the ends handing down. The women wear heavy brown or black ankle boots, well worn and scuffed. The married women are often referred to as ‘Goody’ – short for ‘goodwife’ and their surname.

The religious leader of the village is the Reverend Parris. He is a careworn, stooped figure. A man in his forties, his sparse greying hair is swept back from his face and hangs unkempt to his collar. Parris has deep set, watchful eyes and heavy brows, his mouth a thin, embittered line under a short moustache.

In common with most of the men, Parris is dressed in black, a black sleeveless jerkin over a loose black shirt, the sleeves rolled back from his wrists. His thick woollen socks are tucked into knee-length black breeches. A crumpled white clerical scarf hangs loosely around his neck.

Parris’s daughter, Betty is eleven years old. At the beginning of the play she lies on her bed, comatose, locks of her curly black hair sticking to her damp, clammy little face. Betty’s a small, delicately-built child, her tattered, faded pink shift revealing skinny arms and filthy legs and feet.

Parris’s niece, Abigail Williams, is a member of his household and dependent upon him. Abigail is 17, a determined, quick-witted young woman. Her stance is upright, her strong jaw thrusts forward. Her features are regular, her eyes bright and her gaze steady. Abigail is the acknowledged leader of her peers; she stands tall among them. When she removes her headscarf her waist-length dark auburn hair tumbles in thick, sensuous waves.

The remaining member of Parris’s household is Tituba, his slave. She comes from Barbados, a short, statuesque black woman wearing a khaki blouse and pink and blue print skirt. She often appears bare-headed, revealing roughly chopped black hair. Tituba has a round expressive face. Her mouth is full and can settle into a pout or gape in horror and her dark eyes open wide in surprise or fear. She is barefoot.

Betty’s mysterious illness brings members of the community to gawp and speculate. The first are Thomas Putnam, a prosperous landowner, and his wife Ann, also referred to as Goody Putnam. Thomas is tall and thickset. He is bald with a ginger beard and moustache and his wild blue eyes bulge with righteousness. Thomas is dressed in layers of black, displaying his prosperity in the well-tailored cut of his knee-length black coat, worn over a collarless jacket and black breeches. A dull blue scarf is tied at his neck.

His wife Ann is a slight, sallow-faced woman with a grim mouth, sharp eyed with sharp features to match. She wears muted grey-green, a black shawl around her shoulders, clutching a bible like a charm to ward off danger.

A well-respected member of the community is Rebecca Nurse. She is a withered little woman in her seventies, dressed in slate grey, a black scarf coiled around her head. Rebecca has a still, calm presence and sits unmoving, a dignified figure with pale, papery skin and compassionate eyes.

Her husband Francis is a chubby, round-faced old man with a look of bewildered innocence. His bald head is surrounded by tufts of white hair and he has a ragged white beard. Francis is dressed in a brown collarless jacket, over a brown jerkin and breeches.

Giles Corey is the next visitor. Giles is in his eighties, forthright, with a brow furrowed in truculent defiance. He’s broad and silver haired with a silver beard. His drooping eyes are still bright and not a lot gets past him.

Giles’s clothes are a brown jerkin and brown waxed jacket and with baggy brown trousers, a scarf knotted around his neck. He leans on a hawthorn walking stick.

The Reverend Hale arrives from a neighbouring village. In comparison to the Reverend Parris he is an elegant figure. His long black coat and breeches fit well and he wears a black hat with a broad brim. Hale is short and lean with deepset hooded eyes and hollowed cheeks. His cropped, receding black hair and greying beard are neatly trimmed. Hale exudes scholarly theological zeal and carries a number of weighty books with him.

The other household we visit is headed by John Proctor. In his late thirties, Proctor is a farmer, tall and powerfully built, with broad shoulders and a body shaped by years of hard physical work. His dark hair is cut short and he has a short black beard and moustache and intense blue eyes. His face is grimy, his hands tough-skinned. When he first appears in Parris’s house he has a commanding presence. In his own home, though, he seems subdued, casting fretful glances towards his wife, Elizabeth. Proctor wears a heavy jacket over a black, shapeless undershirt, dark grey trousers and very well worn working boots.

Elizabeth Proctor is also in her thirties, a slender willowy figure in a homespun black dress covered by a rough sacking apron. She’s pale and has an air of fragility, her unsmiling face betraying nothing. She wears a black scarf, but uncovers her dark hair for her husband’s gaze.

Elizabeth is quietly deferential to Proctor but rather guarded, avoiding his eyes. Despite her reserved manner, she has a steadfast inner strength that she reveals as the action develops.

Living in the house with John and Elizabeth Proctor and working for them is Mary Warren. Mary is in her teens, small and slight. Hidden beneath her scarf she has curly auburn hair and her eyes are red-rimmed. Mary keeps her head down, sometimes peering under her lashes with dumb insolence, and seems almost unable to speak in the presence of Proctor, her employer.

A number of other teenage girls appear. Among them are Mercy Lewis a plump outspoken girl and Susanna Walcott, nervous and edgy.

Accusations begin to fly, the county court becomes involved and two more residents make an appearance. They are charged by the court with the carrying out the bidding of the law.

Ezekial Cheever is a hulking man with lank grey hair, attending to his tasks with unquestioning meticulousness. His companion Marshal Herrick is scrawny with a scrubby beard and moustache. His face betrays some discomfort with the work he is forced to undertake.

Herrick’s duties takes him into the town gaol where what looks at first sight like bundle of rags turns out to be a villager by the name of Sarah Good. She is in early middle age, half-mad, her features indiscernible through the filth that begrimes her face. Sarah wears a blouse that once may have been white, and a threadbare brown skirt.

The local magistrate is Judge Hathorne. He is tall and patrician with a thin, cadaverous face, flyaway silver hair and a neat beard. He preens, looking down his long, straight nose at the villagers. Hathorne wears an immaculate black coat over his jerkin and breeches, and knee-length leather boots.

Supreme authority comes in the shape of Danforth, the Deputy Governor of the province, often addressed as ‘Excellency’.

Danforth is in his fifties, precisely bearded with short dark hair. The weight of his office has dragged his face into deep haggard lines, but his eyes are like flint. He is dressed in a well-cut black coat and breeches and his knee-length boots are buffed to a gleaming shine. Danforth prowls the court, every muscle tensed to pounce.

The designer is Soutra Gilmour

Lighting design is by Tim Lutkin and music and sound design by Richard Hammarton

Movement is designed by Imogen Knight

The Crucible is directed by Yael Farber

The next audio described production at the Old Vic will be Electra. Kristin Scott Thomas and director Ian Rickson bring Sophocles’ tragedy to The Old Vic in the round. Frank McGuinness delivers a charged adaptation of this classic tale of power and revenge.

Electra is bound by grief following the murder of her father Agamemnon. Unwilling to forgive and consumed by a desire for revenge, her anger builds. On the return of her brother Orestes, Electra’s fury explodes without mercy, leading to a bloody and terrifying conclusion.

Electra will be audio described on 13th November at 7.30pm with a touch tour at 6.00 pm.