From the desk of the director

Before rehearsals proper commence on the 10th, I’d like to share with you some thoughts from director René Copeland on why The Crucible is an important part of Tennessee Rep’s season…

The Crucible is genius in its ability both to tell a fascinating, disturbing story based on a specific historical moment in time AND to reverberate with universal themes that continue to transcend time.  The story, of course, is from that riveting episode in Salem Village, Massachusetts in 1692, when people were accused of being witches and paid with their lives.  Most people are aware that Arthur Miller was inspired to write the play in response to the McCarthy era, when the House Un-American Activities Committee went on a “witch hunt” for Communists and people’s lives were destroyed.

The bad news is, this play continues to be politically relevant worldwide as time marches on: the dangers inherent in mixing theology with government, the extreme suppression of society as demonstrated by the Puritans, the ramifications of intolerance in politics and religion, the importance of speaking up against authority abusing its power, the nature of mass hysteria and (even more compelling) the irresistible force of peer pressure, the evil streak in human nature that leads us to fend off danger to ourselves by pointing it at someone else.  After recognizing that all of that, and more, is explored in this play, I began to feel that one thing was the through-line tying it all together, one common denominator in all those facets of the story: fear.  The fact is, we behave badly when consumed by fear, and those who would control us are usually successful for a time when they exploit our fear to its fullest.  And then eventually, ironically, it is the fear that destroys us.

For our production of The Crucible, I am particularly interested in illuminating the disintegration of this tight, highly-dogmatic society’s when irrational fear replaces thoughtful reasoning.  We experience a universal truth when we recognize that succumbing to fear is actually far more dangerous than the manufactured threat perpetrated.  Historically, as the trials proceeded, fields fell to waste, untended cows literally wandered the streets, and people began to desert the village.  In our production we’ll be aiming to share with you a sense of the terrifying, fear-induced descent into chaos, a danger that echoes down the years, warning us to be diligent and suspicious of authority that draws power from fear.

A little later, I’ll post a sketch of The Crucible set and we’ll hear from designer Gary Hoff.

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