99 Fun Facts About The Crucible

What working title did Arthur Miller give his Salem play before settling on The Crucible?

Those Familiar Spirits was the title Miller first copyrighted the play under, and the phrase stayed in the script: in Act One Hale boasts that his volumes expose 'all your familiar spirits—your incubi and succubi'.

In his note on the play's historical accuracy, what does Miller admit changing about Abigail Williams?

Her age: the real Abigail was about eleven in 1692 and is seventeen in the play, while Miller went the other way with John Proctor, turning a man of sixty into a farmer in his middle thirties.

Miller wrote The Crucible as an allegory of which American episode?

McCarthyism takes its name from Senator Joseph McCarthy, yet as a senator he had no seat on the House Un-American Activities Committee, the separate body that summoned Miller in 1956.

In Act Four, why does Elizabeth say Giles Corey stood mute rather than answer his indictment?

So his sons keep the farm: a man who never pleaded could not be condemned and his property auctioned, and Elizabeth reports his only words were 'More weight'.

Which honour did The Crucible take in 1953, at the ceremony that also crowned the musical Wonderful Town?

Tony Award for Best Play went to The Crucible in March 1953, yet the New York Drama Critics' Circle passed it over that season, naming William Inge's Picnic best American play with Miller's drama as runner-up.

In Act Four, what does Proctor cry when asked why he refuses to surrender his signed confession?

Because it is my name is the cry, followed by 'I have given you my soul; leave me my name!', after which he tears the paper and goes to the gallows.

Which French philosopher wrote the screenplay for the 1957 film of The Crucible starring Yves Montand?

Jean-Paul Sartre's script was filmed as a French–East German co-production, and scenes planned for Paris were shot at East Germany's DEFA studios in Babelsberg because it was cheaper.

Where does Act One of The Crucible open, in the spring of 1692, with Reverend Parris kneeling in prayer?

An upstairs bedroom in Parris's own house: he is praying over his daughter Betty, who has lain inert on the bed since he caught her and the other girls dancing in the forest.

From which Caribbean colony did Parris bring Tituba, after years there as a merchant before entering the ministry?

Barbados is where the real Parris ran a sugar plantation after leaving Harvard, and in Act Four Tituba dreams the Devil will fly her home, where 'it be no Hell'.

Which woman is charged in Act Two with the 'marvelous and supernatural murder' of Ann Putnam's seven babies?

Rebecca Nurse is the one charged, and a shaken Hale tells her husband that if she 'be tainted, then nothing's left to stop the whole green world from burning'.

In Act Four, what does Parris say fell to the ground as he opened his door, proof his life is threatened?

A dagger fell from his doorway, and the terrified minister, already robbed and hearing rumours of rebellion, begs Danforth to postpone the hangings.

In Act One, what does Betty blurt out that Abigail did in the forest to harm Goody Proctor?

Drank blood is the secret: 'You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife!', Betty cries, and Abigail strikes her across the face to silence her.

In Act One, what habit of his wife Martha does Giles Corey mention to Hale, a remark that later helps condemn her?

Reading books is the habit, and Giles later protests, 'I never said my wife were a witch, Mr. Hale; I only said she were reading books!'

In Act Two, Proctor tells Hale he shuns church partly because Parris preached for weeks until he had what?

Golden candlesticks: the pewter ones Francis Nurse made were not good enough for Parris, Proctor complains, and seeing 'my money glaring at his elbows' in church hurts his prayer.

When Hale makes Proctor recite the Ten Commandments in Act Two, which one does he forget until Elizabeth prompts him?

Adultery is the one that escapes him, the very sin he has committed, and Hale also notes that only two of the Proctors' three children are baptized.

In Act Two, where does Elizabeth say the magistrate who judges Proctor actually sits, refusing to judge him herself?

In his own heart, she tells him—'the magistrate sits in your heart that judges you'—and Proctor snaps back that her justice 'would freeze beer'.

Which newly appointed clerk of the court arrives at the Proctor house in Act Two with a warrant for Elizabeth?

Ezekiel Cheever, 'clerk of the court now', carries sixteen warrants that night and finds the doll with a needle in its belly, calling it 'hard proof'.

In Act Two, which accused beggar does Mary Warren say will be spared the rope because she claims to be pregnant?

Sarah Good is 'near to sixty', Elizabeth scoffs, but Mary says Doctor Griggs has examined her and the court will not hurt the innocent child; the same beggar shares Tituba's cell in Act Four.

In Act Three, why does Danforth arrest Giles Corey for contempt of court?

He will not reveal his source—'I stand mute'—because the honest man who heard Thomas Putnam would be jailed too; Miller himself refused to name names to Congress three years after the premiere.

In Act Three, what does Mary Warren fail to do when the court tells her to prove she was pretending?

Faint: told to 'pretend to faint now', Mary can only stammer 'I have no sense of it now', and Danforth takes her failure as a sign that the girls' fits in court were real.

In Act Three, what does Abigail claim to see in the courtroom when Mary Warren testifies that the girls were faking?

A yellow bird, she gasps—'Why do you come, yellow bird?'—claiming it is Mary's spirit come to tear her face, and the other girls echo every word Mary says.

When Proctor tells the court 'I have known her' in Act Three, what crime does Danforth name?

Lechery is Danforth's word—'You are a lecher?'—and Proctor, having spent his reputation to discredit Abigail, adds that his wife put the girl out on the highroad for it.

In Act Three, what does Elizabeth, who never lies, answer when Danforth asks if her husband strayed with Abigail?

No, sir is the lie that condemns him: made to answer without seeing Proctor's face, she protects his reputation just as he has confessed, and Danforth rules 'this man has lied'.

How does Hale react at the end of Act Three when Danforth orders Proctor arrested on Mary Warren's accusation?

He denounces the proceedings—'I quit this court!'—and slams the door behind him, a sharp turn for the minister Parris summoned in Act One as an expert in 'all demonic arts'.

Which neighbouring town does Parris report in Act Four has 'thrown out the court', stirring fear of rebellion in Salem?

Andover is the town, and Danforth insists 'there is no rebellion in Andover' even as Hale reports that they 'have no need of me' there.

In Act Four, which fellow accuser, the Putnams' servant, vanishes from Salem along with Abigail and Parris's savings?

Mercy Lewis, introduced as 'a fat, sly, merciless girl of eighteen', disappears with Abigail; Parris's daughter had heard the pair talking of ships.

In Act Four, what does Hale urge the condemned to do, since no principle 'may justify the taking' of a life?

Confess falsely to live is his plea—'I come to counsel Christians they should belie themselves'—since life, he says, is 'God's most precious gift'.

What does Elizabeth say at the play's end when Hale begs her to plead with Proctor?

He have his goodness now, she cries, 'God forbid I take it from him!', refusing to talk Proctor out of the gallows as the drums crash and the new sun pours in on her face.

What title does Miller give the brief afterword recording that Parris was voted from office and Elizabeth remarried?

Echoes Down the Corridor closes the text with the news that the victims' farms 'were left to ruin' for over a century and that 'the power of theocracy in Massachusetts was broken'.

In the legend Miller repeats in his afterword, how did Abigail end up after fleeing Salem?

As a prostitute in Boston, says the legend, though the real Abigail simply drops out of the records within a few years of the trials and her date of death is unknown.

Miller's Danforth is the iron chief judge, but what did the real Thomas Danforth do in 1692?

Opposed the trials: he never sat on the Court of Oyer and Terminer, and a letter of October 1692 names him among the leading men who 'utterly condemn' them.

The real Reverend John Hale, whose own wife was accused in 1692, later wrote which book doubting the trials?

A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft was a critique of trials that Hale had at first supported, and it reached print only in 1702, two years after his death.

What became of the real Tituba in 1693, after more than a year behind bars?

Sold to pay her jail fees, to a buyer whose name is lost, because Parris refused to pay them himself; after that she disappears from history.

Before 1692, the real Giles Corey had been tried and fined for using 'unreasonable' force in what incident?

Beating a farmhand to death: Corey thrashed Jacob Goodale with a stick in 1676 and got off with a fine, after a trial at which his neighbour John Proctor testified against him.

Beatrice Straight, Broadway's first Elizabeth Proctor, later won an Oscar for five minutes on screen in which 1976 film?

Network won Straight the Oscar as the wife William Holden's character betrays: only five minutes on screen, yet enough to beat Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver and Piper Laurie in Carrie.

Days after defying HUAC in June 1956, the author of The Crucible married which film star?

Marilyn Monroe's studio had urged her to distance herself from a man HUAC was investigating; she refused, stood by him and married him at the end of June 1956.

Jed Harris, who directed The Crucible's 1953 premiere, was Laurence Olivier's model for the makeup of which Shakespeare role?

Richard III: Olivier, whom Harris had directed on Broadway in 1933, called him 'the most loathsome man I'd ever met' and took his revenge in the crookback king's makeup, on stage and then on film.

Who played Abigail Williams opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in the 1996 film of The Crucible?

Winona Ryder's Abigail reunited her with Day-Lewis three years after The Age of Innocence, and before 1996 was out he had married Rebecca Miller, the playwright's daughter.

Which actress made her Broadway debut as Abigail in Ivo van Hove's 2016 revival with a score by Philip Glass?

Saoirse Ronan made her Broadway debut in the city of her birth: the Irish star was born in the Bronx, and here she played Abigail opposite Ben Whishaw's Proctor.

Which Irish actor was nominated for Best Actor as Proctor in the 2002 Broadway revival opposite Laura Linney?

Liam Neeson and Laura Linney were both nominated in Richard Eyre's staging, and two years later they played husband and wife again, on film, in Kinsey.

Which star of The Hobbit films played Proctor in Yaël Farber's 2014 Old Vic staging?

Richard Armitage, the films' Thorin, had been away from the stage for about twelve years, and Yaël Farber's staging was filmed and shown in cinemas across the UK and Ireland.

How did Arthur Miller's 1957 contempt-of-Congress conviction, for refusing to name names, end the following year?

Overturned on appeal: in August 1958 the Court of Appeals quashed it, finding that the committee's chairman had agreed to defer the naming question, so the contempt charge could not stand.

What routine paperwork request of 1956, rather than any new accusation, prompted HUAC to subpoena Arthur Miller?

A passport renewal was the trigger, and the committee used the application to question him about gatherings he had attended a decade earlier.

What happened to the night-time forest scene between Proctor and Abigail that was staged on Broadway in 1953?

Cut to an appendix: Miller dropped Act Two, Scene 2 from the published reading version, and Laurence Olivier left it out of his 1965 London production as well.

Miller renamed the real accuser Ann Putnam Jr., who shared her mother's name, as which character?

Ruth Putnam is the sick daughter sent to Tituba to conjure her dead sisters; the real Ann Jr. stood before the Salem Village congregation in 1706 while her apology was read out.

The Crucible's title names a vessel that is literally used for what?

Melting metals: a crucible is a pot made to stand extreme heat, and Danforth takes up the image in Act Three, warning Proctor, 'We burn a hot fire here; it melts down all concealment.'

Robert Ward's 1961 opera of The Crucible, premiered by New York City Opera, won what the following year?

Pulitzer Prize for Music went to the opera in 1962; Ward set a libretto Bernard Stambler adapted from Miller's own text, and it became one of the most performed American operas.

Besides farming, what business did the real John Proctor run, a trade Miller leaves out of the play?

A tavern on the Ipswich road, largely run by his wife Elizabeth while he farmed; Miller turns her into a solitary farmer's wife instead.

Which veteran British actor won a BAFTA for playing Judge Danforth in the 1996 film of The Crucible?

Paul Scofield had won his Oscar as Thomas More, the man executed for refusing an oath, in A Man for All Seasons; as Danforth he became the judge demanding the signature.

Which film star married The Crucible's author Arthur Miller in 1956, the year Congress questioned him?

Marilyn Monroe wed Miller in June 1956 and publicly stood by him through the HUAC case, at some risk to her own career. They divorced in 1961.

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, about the Salem witch trials, as an allegory for which American political episode?

McCarthyism, the 1950s hunt for supposed communists, was the target when the play opened in 1953. Miller travelled to Salem to study the witch-trial records before writing it.

Crushed under stones in The Crucible, old Giles Corey gives his torturers which two defiant words?

"More weight" is all the old man gives them, Elizabeth reports. The real Giles Corey, pressed for two days in 1692, is said to have answered the same way.

What handmade gift does Mary Warren bring Elizabeth Proctor from court in Act Two of The Crucible?

A poppet, or rag doll, is what Mary Warren sews to pass long hours in court. That same night the court's men come hunting through the house for just such a doll.

What three-word blasphemy does John Proctor cry out as he is arrested at the end of Act Three of The Crucible?

"God is dead" is Proctor's cry of despair when Mary Warren turns on him. He tells Danforth that God damns their kind especially, and that they will burn together.

What does John Proctor finally do with the confession he has just signed in Act Four of The Crucible?

He tears it up, choosing the gallows over a signed lie that Danforth meant to post on the church door for all of Salem to read.

In The Crucible, women are addressed as 'Goody Proctor' or 'Goody Putnam', a title short for which word?

Goodwife, shortened to Goody, was a polite form of address for a woman of modest rank. A woman of higher standing was addressed as Mistress.

How is Abigail Williams related to Reverend Parris, who has taken her in as an orphan in The Crucible?

His niece is how Parris describes her, and she calls him Uncle. Abigail tells the other girls she saw Indians kill her parents on the pillow next to hers.

In The Crucible, what is pulled from Abigail's belly at Parris's dinner table and blamed on Elizabeth Proctor?

A needle, stuck two inches deep, is drawn out as Abigail screams. Told of it, John Proctor says at once that she did it to herself.

What kind of object is a crucible, the thing that gives Arthur Miller's Salem witch-trial play its title?

A pot for melting metal at fierce heat is a crucible, so the word also means a severe test. Danforth warns Proctor: "We burn a hot fire here; it melts down all concealment."

Whose calm presence alone quiets the whimpering Betty Parris in Act One of The Crucible?

Rebecca Nurse simply stands over the child until she settles, saying she has seen children through their "silly seasons" before. She is later condemned for the unnatural murder of children.

In The Crucible, what is Mary Warren ordered to do on the spot to prove the girls' courtroom fits were an act?

Faint is the order, since she swears the girls only pretended to swoon in court. With no hysteria around her she cannot do it, and her testimony starts to crumble.

Before Elizabeth is questioned in Act Three of The Crucible, what does Danforth order Abigail and John Proctor to do?

Turn their backs, he orders, so that neither can signal her, and no one in the room may speak or gesture. Elizabeth must answer without seeing her husband's face.

What further demand does John Proctor refuse in Act Four of The Crucible, even after confessing to witchcraft himself?

To name other witches is the one thing he will not do: "I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another." Miller refused the same demand when Congress asked him to identify others in 1956.

Where is the whole of The Crucible's final act set, in the hours before dawn on the day of the hangings?

A Salem jail cell is the setting, dark but for moonlight through a high barred window. Act Four takes place that fall, as the town waits for sunrise.

How do Abigail and the girls break Mary Warren's nerve in The Crucible's Act Three courtroom?

Repeating her every word, even her pleas to stop, is their weapon, until Danforth cries "Why can they only repeat you?" Mary breaks and runs to Abigail's side.

What does Elizabeth Proctor believe Abigail hopes to win by having her accused of witchcraft in The Crucible?

Her place as John's wife is the prize, Elizabeth says: Abigail "thinks to kill me, then to take my place." She begs John to go and break the promise the girl imagines he made.

According to Mary Warren in Act One of The Crucible, what will the girls get if they admit only to dancing?

A whipping is the worst that dancing will bring, she pleads, whereas witchcraft is a hanging matter. Abigail answers by threatening every girl in the room.

Which small creature does Abigail admit jumped into the girls' kettle in the forest in Act One of The Crucible?

A frog, "a very little" one, hopped into what she insists was only a soup of beans and lentils. To Hale, any living thing in the kettle is a sign of conjuring.

What is wrong with ten-year-old Betty Parris as the curtain rises on Act One of The Crucible?

She will not wake, having lain inert since her father surprised the girls in the forest the night before. Talk of witchcraft fills the house before anyone can explain it.

From which nearby town is Reverend Hale summoned to Salem as an expert on witchcraft in The Crucible?

Beverly is Hale's parish, where Ann Putnam says he found a witch the year before. He arrives sure that the Devil's marks are "definite as stone."

Which Biblical figure does John Proctor call Hale as Elizabeth is taken away in Act Two of The Crucible?

Pontius Pilate, he shouts: "God will not let you wash your hands of this!" Hale has just assured him that the court is just.

Which abandoned animals wander Salem's highroads in Act Four of The Crucible because their owners are in jail?

Cows roam loose because so many farmers are locked up, and neighbours quarrel over who owns them now. Parris has spent a whole day arguing with farmers about it.

Which animal, sold years earlier to a man named Walcott, lies behind the charge against Martha Corey in The Crucible?

A pig, which died soon after he bought it; Martha told Walcott he lacked the wit to feed one properly. He now swears he cannot keep one alive for more than four weeks.

What does John Proctor slip into Elizabeth's cooking pot before praising its seasoning in The Crucible?

Salt goes in while she is upstairs with the children, and he then tells her the meal is well seasoned. She blushes with pleasure and says she took great care over it.

In The Crucible, what does Danforth order for the ninety-one villagers who signed a paper praising the accused wives?

Arrest for examination is the order, though the old farmer who gathered the names had promised the signers no harm would come of it. Danforth says the innocent have nothing to fear.

Which promised supply does Reverend Parris say he has waited for since November in Act One of The Crucible?

Firewood is owed him under his contract, he says, and he has had to show his frostbitten hands "like some London beggar." The quarrel over his pay sours the whole village.

What does Abigail claim to feel in The Crucible's Act Three courtroom just as Danforth begins to doubt her?

A cold wind, she says, hugging herself and staring at Mary Warren until the other girls are shivering too. Hale himself had asked her about "a sudden cold wind" back in Act One.

In Act One of The Crucible, what does John Proctor say Reverend Parris preaches so much that he stays home?

Hellfire and damnation, he complains, are all he gets for a five-mile trip to meeting. He tells Parris that others stay away because he hardly ever mentions God any more.

Which work on Salem's church does John Proctor cite to Hale in The Crucible as a sign of his faith?

Nailing on its roof, and hanging its door, is his answer when Hale questions his churchgoing. Hale calls it "a good sign" but keeps probing.

Which Salem judge is heard grilling Martha Corey as Act Three of The Crucible opens, before Danforth takes charge?

John Hathorne is heard through the wall, asking Martha how she knows she is not a witch. His great-great-grandson Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, was ashamed of his ancestor's lack of remorse.

What sound crashes in the final moments of The Crucible as John Proctor goes to the gallows at sunrise?

A drumroll strikes the air, and as it swells Hale weeps in prayer while the new sun pours in on Elizabeth's face. Miller's last image is of drums that "rattle like bones."

Which director of Death of a Salesman named names to HUAC in 1952, the year Arthur Miller researched The Crucible?

Elia Kazan talked his testimony over with Miller, who then travelled on to Salem to research the witch trials. The two friends did not speak to each other for the next ten years.

The last line of The Crucible's afterword says the power of what was 'broken' in Massachusetts?

Theocracy is Miller's word for Salem's rule, "a combine of state and religious power" meant to hold the community together. After the trials, he writes, its power was broken.

Why does Danforth refuse to postpone the dawn executions in Act Four of The Crucible?

It would discredit earlier hangings, he argues: a reprieve "must cast doubt upon the guilt of them that died till now." He adds that he would hang ten thousand who rose against the law.

What does Betty Parris try to do at the window in Act One of The Crucible, calling for her dead mother?

Fly out of it is her aim: "I'll fly to Mama. Let me fly!" she cries, and she gets one leg over the sill before Abigail pulls her back.

What does Reverend Parris tell Abigail that a faction in Salem has sworn to do in The Crucible?

Drive him from his pulpit is the plot he fears, so talk of witchcraft in his own house terrifies him. He says he has fought three long years to bend Salem's stiff-necked people to him.

Which translation of scripture lent its rhythms and speech patterns to Arthur Miller's dialogue in The Crucible?

The King James Bible gave Miller the cadence he wanted for 1692. He also gave every character the same period colloquialisms, though real settlers would have kept strong regional English dialects.

What became of Arthur Miller's contempt of Congress conviction in 1958, five years after The Crucible opened?

Overturned on appeal is the answer: the court ruled that the HUAC chairman had misled Miller. He had been convicted for refusing to identify people he had seen at meetings.

What does Mary Warren call herself in Act Two of The Crucible, defying an order to stay home?

An official of the court is how the servant now styles herself, and Elizabeth says she lifts her chin "like the daughter of a prince." Proctor's reply: "I'll official you!"

Which angel's words to the boy Tobias does John Proctor quote to steady Mary Warren in The Crucible's courtroom?

Raphael told Tobias "Do that which is good, and no harm shall come to thee," and Proctor is still urging the line on Mary as her nerve finally gives way.

Act Three of The Crucible takes place in which room of the Salem meeting house, serving as the court's anteroom?

The vestry is where Danforth hears Proctor, while the trials themselves go on unseen through the wall. Miller's stage direction calls the sunlit room "solemn, even forbidding."

Giles Corey boasts in The Crucible of thirty-three court appearances in his life, always in which role?

Plaintiff, he says with pride, when Danforth asks whether he has any legal training. Told he must be much put-upon, the old man snaps that he is never put-upon.

Of which act of witchcraft does Danforth say John Proctor stands convicted in The Crucible?

Sending his spirit on Mary Warren is the charge Danforth names, moments before Proctor signs a confession. His soul alone is the issue, Danforth insists, not what anyone else did.

The Crucible's afterword says what happened for over a century to some farms that had belonged to the victims?

Nobody would buy them or live on them, Miller writes, and the farms were simply left to ruin. He adds that Salem's congregation lifted the excommunications only in 1712.

Ann Putnam admits in The Crucible that she sent her own daughter to Tituba to do what?

Name her sisters' killer was the errand, since Ann believes Tituba knows how to speak to the dead. Parris tells her it is a formidable sin to conjure them up.

What are the villagers singing at Reverend Parris's house in The Crucible when Betty covers her ears and screams?

A psalm is being sung, and Betty wails at the words "going up to Jesus." Ann Putnam takes it as proof: the child cannot bear to hear the Lord's name.

Which college does Reverend Parris boast of graduating from when his salary is mocked in Act One of The Crucible?

Harvard College is his trump card: "I am not some preaching farmer with a book under my arm." Giles Corey shoots back that he is well instructed in arithmetic.

Which Sabbath-breaking does John Proctor admit to in Act Three of The Crucible, pleading that his land gave little?

Ploughing on a Sunday, "once or twice", is what he owns up to, saying he has three children to feed. Giles Corey adds that plenty of other Christians do the same.

Which woman named by Tituba does Ann Putnam say was her midwife three times, in Act One of The Crucible?

Goody Osburn delivered three of her children, and Ann says her babies "always shriveled in her hands." It is all the proof of witchcraft she needs.