The Crucible

Cast List

Betty Parris - Sascha Shipley/ Stephanie Van Der Burgh
Reverand Samuel Parris - Dylan Bertus
Tituba - Christina De Silva
Abigail Williams - Grace Smith
Susanna Wallcot - Maheshi Dharmasiri
Mrs Ann Putnam - Maria Santiago
Thomas Putnam - Ali Khan
Mercy Lewis - Toni Levy
Mary Warren - Chrisni Mendis
John Proctor - Damien Martin
Rebecca Nurse - Ayla Oleson Yurteslan
Giles Corey - Kashish Sharma
Reverend John Hale - Thaim Rasheed
Mrs. Elizabeth Proctor - Alice Fredericks
Francis Nurse - Rajindh Fernando
Ezekiel Cheever - Sasha Smith-Sreen
Judge Hathorne - Filippo Stopponi
Deputy-Governor Danforth - Nicholas Buhne
Martha Corey - Marline Jaspers-Faijer
Hysterical Girl - Tangmo Saksirivetkul

Director - Ms. Abeyawardene

Crew

Costume Design and Makeup - Tara Nelson and Camille Raguin
Set Design and Production - Paul Schluetter and Hella Dijsselbloem-Giron
Photography and Publicity - Yiseul Shin
Lighting and Sound - Saba Rewald
Props - Sascha Shipley
Prompter - Harshini Karunaratne

Visual Arts Co-ordinator - Ms. Barnett

So! We finally made it to production week. We have been working on this play since the beginning of this semester. It was an extremely ambitious play, but in the end I think we scraped through creditably. We still had some line problems, so our prompt, Harshini, was invaluable! It all looked like it was going to be a disaster at the dress rehearsals, as people were still memorising large portions of their scripts back-stage. Luckily, I had freaked out a couple of weeks earlier about how close to performing we were, and had learnt most of my lines. Admittedly, I had an awful lot less than some of our main leads, like Thaim, Damien and Nicholas.

I had started with the impression that my character was a little bit boring, but by the end of the production I really empathized with her. I enjoyed being someone that has a quiet dignity and courage - precisely because I am so different. I think that she is important in creating the human drama in the play - otherwise it would be quite impersonal. She brings a sense of personal tragedy, of reality, to John Proctor's story. I think she is not a particularly likeable character on her own, but she is saved in the audience's eyes by the fact that Proctor loves her.

Most of my scenes were with Proctor (Damien), which was actually quite helpful as we really learned to back each other up and interract on stage. It's much harder if there are more people on stage. If one of us forgot a line, the other was able to rescue them (although not always).

Overall I was really impressed with everyone's acting - people really 'found' their characters towards the end. There were just two main problems. The first one was lines: there were still some quite long, awkward pauses, even on the performance nights. Secondly, some of the scenes, especially towards the end, were really static - no one moved! This probably had something to do with not knowing their lines.

Our best Act was definitely the first one (which is kind of sad, because I wasn't in it), and then they gradually deteriorated down to the last one, where we ended up skipping large chunks of the script because we couldn't remember it. That said, the last act was particularly difficult, and was mainly a conversation between Danforth (nicholas) and Proctor (damien). The two guys did really really well, considering the amazing amount of lines they had to remember, as did Hale (thaim) and Parris (dylan).


I think that while this certainly wasn't a perfect production of the Crucible, it went a lot better than I had been expecting. It was also really helpful for understanding the play, which will be useful as it is one of my texts for the IB Examination Paper 2. I enjoyed developing my character, and getting to know some people I hadn't really talked to before, and especially being part of a cast, which is always fun. So it was a pretty positive experience, all things considered.

RCCI

Here are some photos from one of the sessions with the RCCI kids on Thursday afternoons. I was trying to teach two of the girls how to play volleyball (or just to get them to throw the ball back to me!). Throwing and catching games work very well, as does shooting hoops, and I have recently tried getting some of the boys to jog around the gym with me, which gets them some excercise.

I have been made leader for this semester, which means that I need to set up a website/blog about what we do at RCCI, and work hard to be a good role model for the other OSC kids - especially in helping the ones that are new to the activity understand how it works, and how to relate to the RCCI kids.

The Crucible: Character Research

I don't know how much this actually will help, but I found researching the Puritans kind of interesting, so here goes!

Joan Allen as Elizabeth Proctor in "The Crucible" (StinkyLulu Blog)

Puritans -sources: articles on The Puritans and The Salem Witch Trials on Wikipedia.

• Puritans settled New England in 1630 – 21,000 settlers. Not all stayed in America, but population grew a lot because there was high birth rate and low death rate.




• Greater emphasis on personal purity (Be there no penitence but it be public?? - asking them if they are not true to their puritan ideals).




• Each church is independent – there is no bishop hierarchy within the church.




• Very strict worship practices – no images, clothes, or CANDLES (disgusted by Parris and his wish for gold candlesticks). No Holidays (against the principles of the Bible). No music.




• State rewards ‘true religion’ and punishes ‘sin’ but is not part of the Church




• All members of the Church had to prove they led good lives etc. (if Elizabeth admits Proctor was a lecher they would be kicked out of the Church) but also had to recount an example of the grace of god working in their lives to the congregation.




• Order in the family fundamentally structured Puritan belief. The essence of social order lay in the authority of husband over wife, parents over children, and masters over servants in the family. (family is unusual in that Elizabeth has a certain amount of power of John because of his affair with Abigail.




• Children that behaved badly reflected on the obedience of the parents to god. It was therefore VERY important that Children be ready to for conversion… (reflected badly on Elizabeth that her son had not been baptized – bad mother = bad Christian).




• The home gave women the freedom to exercise religious and moral authority, performing duties not open to them in public. (John’s adultery happened at the home – partly Elizabeth's fault - in her eyes - because she did not keep her home together. It was her responsibility to keep the home/house pure).




• Children (particularly girls) were extremely repressed and not allowed to do anything. Children should be seen and not heard was taken at its word.




• Women seen as totally subservient to men – women more sinful, and more lustful. Sexual sin was usually their responsibility.

Character, Elizabeth Proctor:

Historical research + my interpretation: Her grandmother was a Quaker, which carries a certain stigma with the Puritans. She was also tried for witchcraft (Elizabeth Proctor, Wikipedia). Elizabeth always has to prove herself – always has to prove that she is pure enough to be accepted.

Many of her family was arrested – her family is looked down upon by others (Elizabeth Proctor, Wikipedia). MASSIVE COMPLEX ABOUT NOT BEING GOOD ENOUGH. Cares very much what other people think because this affects whether you live or die – support of the town was essential to survival (Puritan societies survived the harsh environment because they worked together).