Crucible rehearsals: Week 1
In any rehearsal process, the first week of rehearsal starts with tablework and moves on to blocking (giving actors their specific movements around the stage). In tablework, we gather to talk about the play, read through the script several times, and set the direction we’re going to take. An important part of the first-week discussions is devoted to history and context surrounding the setting of the play as well as the era in which it was written. In The Crucible, history plays an even more crucial part, since the play is based on a historical event (the Salem witch trials) and was written in response to another historical event (the McCarthy-era anti-Communist Congressional hearings).
As René stated in her early Director’s Notes, The Crucible is largely about what happens when a people allow their own fears to poison the community. In Salem, fear and suspicion turned neighbor against neighbor, family member against family member, and the community splintered as a result. Children were left orphaned when their parents were jailed awaiting trial; cattle wandered the streets untended; crops rotted in the fields. Likewise, McCarthy’s Communist witch hunt engendered an environment of deep mistrust and finger-pointing. People were overwhelmed by fear and, in the words of Giles Corey in The Crucible, they “broke charity” with their neighbors. This, of course, only caused the fear to grow as people sat in their homes wondering when their names would be called.
Now, do you have to know the history of the McCarthy-era trials to enjoy The Crucible? Not at all! But when you know the story behind any great work of art–a painting, a symphony, or a play–your appreciation (and enjoyment) of that work will be even greater.
No Comments
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
