Parris confronts Abigail Williams, the girls’ leader, about what transpired in the forest after calling for Reverend Hale, an authority on witchcraft.Ībigail, Parris’ niece and ward, acknowledges only “dance” as her only activity.Ībigail chats to some of the other girls and instructs them not to admit to anything as Parris tries to calm the gathering that has gathered in his home.Ī local farmer named John Proctor then walks in and speaks with Abigail by herself. Rumors of witchcraft are spreading around the village as a crowd gathers in the Parris home. Betty, one of the girls, enters a state like a coma. They are discovered dancing by Reverend Parris, the village clergyman.

It is regarded as a key piece in the American drama canon.Ī group of female students in Salem, Massachusetts, a Puritan New England town, go dancing in the woods with Tituba, a black slave. A successful fresh production of the play a year later helped it become a classic.

The play earned the 1953 Tony Award for Best Production for the show. The majority of the reviews for this production were negative, and Miller felt that it was overly stylised and frigid (although The New York Times noted “a powerful play driving performance”). Marshall, Beatrice Straight, and Madeleine Sherwood gave the play its Broadway debut on January 22, 1953, at the Martin Beck Theatre. In 1956, Miller was questioned by the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, and after refusing to name additional attendees of meetings he had attended, Miller was found guilty of contempt of Congress.Į.

Miller created the play as a parable for the McCarthy era, during which the American government punished those who were thought to be communists. It tells the account of the Salem witch trials, which occurred in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692–1693 but were dramatised and somewhat romanticised. The Crucible PDF Free Download : Arthur Miller, an American playwright, wrote The Crucible pdf in 1953.

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