Ruth's condition, coupled with the fact that seven of Mrs. They reveal to Parris that their daughter, Ruth, has also fallen into a strange trance. Putnam, members of one of the prominent families in Salem, enter the room and declare that Betty's illness results from witchcraft. Parris also questions Abigail about her character and the reason why Goody Proctor, who is the wife of John Proctor and a very respected woman in Salem, dismissed her from working as the Proctors’ servant. He thinks that she and Betty have conjured spells.
Parris says that he saw her and Betty dancing "like heathens," Tituba moving back and forth over a fire while mumbling unintelligibly, and an unidentified female running naked through the forest.Ībigail denies that she and the other girls were participating in witchcraft, but Parris suspects she is lying. Parris, distraught and troubled because he knows that Abigail has not been entirely truthful regarding her activities in the woods, confronts Abigail. The town physician, Doctor Griggs, who has not been able to determine why Betty is ill, suggests witchcraft as a possible cause. Prior to the opening of the play, Parris discovered Betty, his niece Abigail, and Tituba, his black slave from Barbados, dancing in the forest outside of Salem at midnight.Īfter Parris came out of the bushes, Betty lost consciousness and has remained in a stupor ever since. В A L.A.The Crucible begins in the house of Reverend Samuel Parris, whose daughter, Betty, lies unconscious in bed upstairs. Most moving is Stacy Keach as John Proctor, who fights to salvage some good from the trials that destroy Salem." The young girls playing at witchcraft shriek in irregular counterpoint to the quiet, terrifying judgments rendered by Reverend Harris (Michael York), and doubt is ever more audible in the voice of Reverend Hale (Richard Dreyfuss). The star-studded cast ratchets the tension to a disturbing level as the town disintegrates.
In a searing portrait of a community engulfed by panic - withВ ruthless prosecutors, and neighbors eager to testify against neighbor - The Crucible famously mirrors the anti-Communist hysteria that held the United States in its grip in the 1950’s.Īudiofile Magazine review: "At once an allegory of the 1950s' anti-communist witch hunts and a spotlight on seventeenth-century witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, this play shows how ignorance and good intentions can interweave to destroy lives. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, Massachusetts, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town. Richard Dreyfuss and Stacy Keach stars in Arthur Miller’s classic The Crucible, a central work in the canon of American drama that remains required reading in most high school and college English courses.
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