50 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 working title; in Act One, Hale arrives promising that his volumes will expose 'all your familiar spirits—your incubi and succubi'.

Miller made Abigail Williams seventeen to make her affair with Proctor plausible; how old was the real girl in 1692?

About twelve was the real girl's age, and there is no evidence that she and John Proctor ever met before the trials began.

The play introduces John Proctor as a farmer in his middle thirties; roughly how old was the real Proctor when hanged?

About sixty is the real figure: the Massachusetts landowner, born in 1631, was hanged on 19 August 1692, so Miller's younger Proctor is a deliberate rewrite.

In Act Four, why does Elizabeth say Giles Corey stood mute under the stones instead of answering 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 on 29 March 1953 at the Waldorf-Astoria, where its Elizabeth Proctor also took the featured-actress prize.

What does Proctor cry in Act Four when Danforth asks why he will not let his signed confession be displayed?

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 300-page script for the 1957 film of The Crucible starring Yves Montand?

Jean-Paul Sartre turned the play into a class-war parable with a new ending in which the townspeople rise against the judge, and Miller complained it reduced man to 'a digit in the socialist dialectic'.

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 home is the setting, 'a small upper bedroom' in spring 1692, where Betty lies inert after the night in the forest.

From which Caribbean colony does Parris say he brought Tituba, after years there as a merchant before his 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'.

In Act One, how many babies does Ann Putnam say she has 'laid unbaptized in the earth', blaming witchcraft?

Seven is her count, each child withering 'the very night of their birth'; the real Putnams, by contrast, lost only two of a dozen children.

In Act Four, what does Parris say clattered to the ground when he opened his door, proof his own 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, beyond dancing, to work against 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 stays away from church partly because Parris preached until he got what for the altar?

Golden candlesticks are the grievance: Parris, Proctor says, preached 'nothin' but golden candlesticks until he had them', a minister who may pray to God without them.

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 an old woman, Elizabeth scoffs, yet Mary insists the court believes her and will not hang her; the same beggar shares Tituba's cell in Act Four.

In Act Three, why does Danforth arrest Giles Corey for contempt of court after he accuses Thomas Putnam of greed?

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

Giles Corey's Act Three deposition says Thomas Putnam had his daughter cry witchcraft on a neighbour to buy what?

His forfeited land is the object: a hanged witch's property reverted to the state, and 'there is none but Putnam with the coin to buy so great a piece'.

In Act Three, what does Abigail claim to see on the beam 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.

To destroy Abigail's credibility in Act Three, what sin does Proctor publicly admit to, costing him his reputation?

Lechery is the court's word for it—'I have known her, sir. I have known her'—and Proctor adds that his wife put the girl out of their house 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'.

Cornered by the girls' hysteria in Act Three, what does Mary Warren scream at Proctor as she turns on him?

You're the Devil's man, she shrieks, claiming he came to her at night to make her sign the Devil's book, and Proctor is arrested on the spot.

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!'—slamming the door behind him, only to return in Act Four begging the condemned to save themselves.

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, as Hale begs her to plead with Proctor on his way to the gallows?

He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him! is the final line, spoken as the drums roll and the morning sun pours through the cell window.

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'.

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

As a prostitute in Boston, says the legend, while the real girl simply vanishes from the records around 1696, her fate unknown.

Miller makes Deputy Governor Danforth the iron chief judge; what did the real Thomas Danforth actually do in 1692?

Opposed the trials is the record: he never sat on the Court of Oyer and Terminer, was said to 'utterly condemn' them and later helped end 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 argued that fear had impaired the judgment of everyone involved, and it appeared in 1702, two years after Hale's death.

Miller leaves Tituba's fate unknown; what actually became of the real Tituba in April 1693?

Sold to pay her jail fees to an unknown buyer, after more than a year in prison on her own confession, she then 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—Jacob Goodale, in 1676—was the charge, and the man Miller paints as 'knotted with muscle' at eighty-three was in fact about eighty-one when he was pressed.

Which actress created Elizabeth Proctor on Broadway in 1953 and later won an Oscar for a brief role in Network?

Beatrice Straight, a Whitney heiress, won the 1953 featured-actress honour as Elizabeth and, 23 years on, the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Network.

Which actor, the original Biff in Death of a Salesman, created John Proctor on Broadway in January 1953?

Arthur Kennedy created four Miller roles in all—Chris Keller, Biff, Proctor and Walter Franz in The Price—and was nominated for five Oscars without a win.

Which director of The Crucible's 1953 premiere was the model for Laurence Olivier's Richard III makeup?

Jed Harris, whom Olivier called 'the most loathsome man I'd ever met', also inspired Disney's Big Bad Wolf, Olivier believed; Miller recast and restaged the show himself that June.

Who played Abigail in the 1996 film of The Crucible, reuniting with Daniel Day-Lewis after The Age of Innocence?

Winona Ryder's Abigail leads a cast shot largely on the Massachusetts coast for 20th Century Fox, in a film that grossed only $7.3 million against a $25 million budget.

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

Saoirse Ronan played Abigail as 'more victim than victimizer' at the Walter Kerr Theatre, where the revival ran 125 performances 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's 'admirable restraint' as Proctor, praised by Variety, earned the nomination, with Laura Linney as his Elizabeth.

Which actor, fresh from playing Thorin in The Hobbit films, was Proctor in Yaël Farber's 2014 Old Vic staging?

Richard Armitage's Proctor, played in the round, drew an unprecedented run of five-star reviews, and the production was filmed for cinemas and a worldwide download.

What penalty did Arthur Miller recall his 1957 contempt conviction carrying, on top of $40,000 in lawyers' fees?

$500 fine and suspended sentence for a year was the price, Miller wrote, of refusing to talk about anyone but himself, and the appeals court threw the conviction out in 1958.

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.

Which part of the play, cut from the published text after 1953, shows Abigail and Proctor meeting at night in a wood?

Act Two, Scene 2 survives as an appendix; Laurence Olivier cut it from his 1965 London production, and most stagings since the 1958 Martinique Theatre revival omit it.

Miller renamed the real accuser Ann Putnam Jr. in the play to avoid confusion with her mother; what is she called?

Ruth Putnam is the sick daughter sent to Tituba to conjure her dead sisters; the real Ann Jr. accused 62 people and publicly begged forgiveness in 1706.

Much of the 1996 Crucible film was shot on which spot in the Essex River estuary, inside the Crane Wildlife Refuge?

Hog Island, also called Choate Island, hosted the Salem village set on land owned by The Trustees of Reservations.

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, along with the New York Music Critics Circle Citation, and Miller himself helped choose Ward as composer.

Besides farming a leased 700-acre estate, what business did the real John Proctor hold a licence for from 1668?

A tavern made the real Proctor a publican as well as a farmer, on ground that is now Peabody, Massachusetts, and Miller drops the trade entirely.

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

Paul Scofield's Danforth took the supporting-actor BAFTA, in a cast whose Elizabeth, Joan Allen, was Oscar-nominated.