'All is not as it seems': Why The Yard is gender-flipping John Proctor in The Crucible

Zoe Paskett25 March 2019

At a time when cries of “witch hunt” seem to crop up several times a week, The Crucible seems to be a particularly relevant play.

Based on the Salem Witch Trials, Arthur Miller’s play was written during the McCarthy era in America, as an allegory for the people persecuted of being accused Communists.

The Yard Theatre, known for its spotlight on new work, is staging The Crucible as its first ever production of a play by a non-living playwright. But they can’t resist a twist: John Proctor will be played by a woman.

Artistic director Jay Miller tells us about The Yard’s adaptation of The Crucible and the decision to gender-flip the lead character.

Why was The Crucible chosen as the theatre’s first production by a non-living writer?

Culturally, we seem to be at a junction. Fear is driving divisions between us. Groups, parties, collectives of people are starting to splinter and divide. In this context, The Crucible is extraordinarily relevant.

One of the central ideas in the play is what justice is in a culture of fear. We’ve been thinking about this for today’s world – what role does technology have to play? What justice is carried out on the internet? These ideas have influenced the performances and the world we have built.

How has the play been adapted?

At the heart of our idea for the production is creating an explosively live experience for the audience. The audience won’t passively watch the events unravel. They will be complicit in the building up of the fiction. They will be dragged into Salem as the witch hunt ramps up.

We’re also trying to bend space and time to explore what it feels like to lose a sense of reality. We’re hoping this will speak to today’s politics — the impossibility of telling truth from fiction. So the design of the show will create an unstable atmosphere, where all is not as it seems.

Why did you decide to cast a woman as John Proctor and how has this affected the storytelling?

John Proctor carries the themes of truth and reputation in the play. Both these ideas have a complicated relationship to gender identity which we wanted to highlight, especially in the justice system. Putting this role in the hands of a female actor was one way of starting a conversation about identity and justice, which we hope will also ask broader questions about power, accusation, and oppression.

The Crucible runs at the Yard Theatre March 27-May 11, theyardtheatre.co.uk

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