The Crucible Dramaturgy Statement
Within his heart the fool spoke
And said, “There is no God!”
Destructive in their vile deeds,
Not one of them does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven
Upon the human race:
Has anyone shown wisdom?
Does any seek God’s face?
The chorus sung throughout Act I is from Psalm 14 (as found in the 1640 Bay Psalm Book, used by the Puritan colonists) set to a 1547 tune by Louis Bourgeois. These verses resonate with our story in two ways. First, the reaction of the religious community to “foolish” statements (such as those made by John and Elizabeth Proctor) that doubt or deny the gospel. Second, the desperate cry in the last line of this first verse—a cry from God to his people, or perhaps from the people to God. Both Anglicans and Puritans alike believed that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent deity looked down upon the world that he had created. “Seeking God’s face,” then, would have been understood to mean “doing good,” the same ambiguous standard in line four. The trouble is, every character in The Crucible believes they are seeking God’s face. Take Reverend Hale, whose faith fails him, and Judge Danforth, whose legal training challenges Hale’s clerical authority, for example. The goals of these characters are in no way mutually incompatible, but their methods (and morals) soon clash. If no precedent, religious or legal, can provide an infallible answer to this desperation and destruction, who or what decides the outcome? Arthur Miller argues that fear decides the outcome, often to violent ends.
Our company recognized the modern mythology of this story (set in 1692, written in 1953, and constantly invoked in 2019) and reckoned with how it impacts us, as high school students in Houston over three hundred years after Salem. Hale speaks a line in Act IV that we agree is the thesis of the play: “Cleave to no faith when faith brings blood.” Today, in an increasingly secular society, the concept of faith extends far beyond the Puritans. Faith is simultaneously used to inspire good and justify evil. Miller’s retelling of the infamous witch trials asks us how we can fight for what is good when the line between good and evil seems to blur.
How many times do we have to tell this story? Until we are through with Salem—or rather, until Salem is through with us.
