The opening night began beautifully with a haunting arrangement by Dr. Brian Cobb emanating throughout a darkened stage. Soon, ambient purple lights engulfed the stage, and the show began.
“The Crucible” takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692一the original stage of the Salem Witch Trials. The 1953 play is about a servant girl who blames a farmer’s wife of witchcraft amidst the growing hysteria the witch trials manifested. Written by playwright Arthur Miller, the play was written to protest Miller’s own modern-day “witch hunt;” McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
This year’s play was directed by Professor Karen Jo Fairbrook. Her, along with a crew of Bellevue College’s most esteemed drama faculty, wanted to illustrate a prominent issue throughout human history.
“It’s what we keep doing through time. We keep, you know, [doing] these versions of witch hunts,” she said. “So for me, it was like a no-brainer, this is a story that we need to tell again now and remind people.”
Professor Fairbrook also mentioned the students playing a huge role in the decision of the fall theatre performance.
“I asked students whether they would be more excited to work on a witty social satire, ‘The Importance of Being Earnest,’ or a dark, weighty drama, ‘The Crucible.’ Much to my surprise, they chose to dig deep into the tragic play.” Though she mentioned “how nice it would be to take my mind off our current national and global problems by focusing on comedy,” she embraced the idea of students “getting serious about a very timely play.”
“That is what learning through the art of theatre is all about,” she stated.
When asked about the process and effort it took to create “The Crucible,” Professor Fairbrook explained her process as a director, and of the music and the use of the stage.
“I, as a director, don’t watch or listen to anything else. I didn’t even watch the movie. I just wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to imagine. Then I found out it was in here [the Carlson theatre], and one of the absolute first decisions I made was, there has to be music. And the music has to set the tone; each thing has to be different. And then my idea became a journey.”
The play begins with a servant girl named Abigail, emerging onto the purple-lit stage with a cauldron and lantern in hand navigating a forest. Soon after, a handful of actors emerge onto the stage, dancing in a circle surrounding Abigail, chanting and whooping, until a man suddenly emerges out of the bush, startled at the mere sight.
As a viewer, the music completely immerses you. Each piece is shrill and haunting, almost as if it’s waiting for you to make the wrong move.
The stage was divided into three parts, each being used as the play went on. The upstage portion was used during the first act, farthest away from the audience. At the start of the second act, the actors began to perform on center stage, getting closer to the audience. After the intermission, the final act had actors performing at the downstage portion, closest to the audience. This, tied in with the actors’ skills to envelope the audience in the tragic tale.
“I did design the set and everything,” says Fairbrook. “So the back part there [in reference to the back of the stage] is the first part of the journey. Then they come out a little bit more forward for this. Then they come a little bit more forward for the courtroom, and then in the end, we end here [in reference to the floor below the stage].”
“So then, I said to Brian, ‘I’m sure that this is going to sound really goofy, but this is kind of what I’m thinking.’ And much to my surprise, he said, ‘Oh, that’s good, yeah, I could do that.’ And so we had this great collaboration of going back and forth, because Brian was able to make the journey in music too.”
The opening performance was a great display of teamwork and collaboration within Bellevue College’s theatre department, and that’s quite evident here.
“The Crucible” was not only a fall theatre show, but it was a reply to our leaders putting us in the same position Arthur Miller was in when writing this play. “I believe that we are in another time of witch hunting,” explained Fairbrook. “Witch-hunting of the other, from our current administration. I feel there’s a lot of blame, you know, and a lot of censoring. That’s why we had the picture of Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.”
“In 1692, us all sitting here,” Fairbrook stated, “we would have been witches.”
At the end of the play, the curtains opened, and an array of images were shown. Not just of the witch trials, but of multiple events throughout U.S. history, including the Red Scare, Japanese internment and ICE raids that are currently affecting thousands of people today. An homage to the people victim to the beliefs mass hysteria creates.
