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First Posted: 1/8/2015
Trembling, blinking, and chewing her knuckles, Mary Warren is in the hot seat.
The young woman, played by Emily Thomas in Little Theatre of Wilkes-Barre’s production of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” is trying to recant her earlier testimony about certain people in her little town practicing witchcraft.
“It were pretense, Sir,” she tells the stern-faced Judge Danforth, who thunders that if she wasn’t lying before, she must be lying now. Doesn’t she know that God damns all liars?
Mary Warren’s near-paralyzing fear came across vividly during a recent rehearsal, foreshadowing the exquisite agony of protagonist John Proctor, who confesses to adultery in an effort to save his wife from the gallows, and the ordeal of his wife, Elizabeth, who tells a lie for perhaps the first time in her life to try to shield her husband.
Her forehead gleaming with perspiration, Proctor’s partner in adultery, Abigail Williams, appeared none too comfortable herself. Her own life hung in the balance as she waited to hear how the wronged wife would testify.
The play, which opens Jan. 17, is peopled with characters from the infamous Salem witchcraft trials of the late 1600s, which resulted in 19 people being hanged and one person being suffocated by heavy rocks loaded onto his chest.
For decades, English-lit teachers have explained the connection between hysterical accusations of witchcraft in Colonial New England and hysterical accusations of communism led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.
After he wrote the play Miller faced accusations of being a communist sympathizer and was blacklisted because he refused to “name names” before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
“If (Miller) had just written an allegory about McCarthyism, it wouldn’t have lasted,” said director David Parmelee. “But he wrote a play about loyalty and betrayal and love that’s almost Shakespearean. That’s why it endures.”
With every rehearsal, Parmelee said, he and the cast find additional nuances in the script, “seeds the playwright has planted there.” For example, he said, they realized the gradually reconciling John and Elizabeth Proctor kiss each other three times during the play. “Each time, it has a different meaning … watch for those three kisses.”
Cast members say they appreciate the richness of the drama and its characters.
“When I read it in high school, ‘The Crucible’ jumped off the page,” said Deirdre Lynch, who plays Elizabeth Proctor.
“I am in love with this role,” said Paul Winarski, who plays the Rev. Parris.
His character is one of several clergymen who take an active part in the trials, which are seen by several characters as a struggle between God and the devil.
“You’re the devil’s man. I won’t hang with you,” Mary Warren shrieks at John Proctor, turning against him after a horrifying turn of events.
Now, how would a person prove to a Puritanical mob that he isn’t in league with the devil? It wasn’t easy in 1692 Salem, and it wasn’t easy in the 1860s prairie locale where Little Theatre has set its production.
Stephen Marino, a representative of the Arthur Miller Society from Brooklyn, will attend the opening-night performance and gala on Jan. 17 and lead a discussion after the 3 p.m. Jan. 18 matinee. This is the first time he’ll see “The Crucible” in a setting other than Puritan New England and, for him, that just adds to the intrigue.
“I am so looking forward to this play,” he said. “I can’t wait.”