Both ‘The Crucible’ and ‘Macbeth’ are four act plays which follow Gustav Freytag’s traditional four act play structure of tragedies and comedies. This is: the exposition, which is the beginning scene, that has the inciting moment, rising action which is the second act that makes the action taken in the inciting moment and makes it worse, eventually leading up to the climax, which is where there is a sudden change of events due to the protagonist making a bad decision and finally the falling action which Is where the problem is usually resolved. This is the four act structure of a tragedy, which both ‘The Crucible’ and ‘Macbeth’ are. But sometimes, as in ‘Macbeth’, it does not follow the four act structure exactly as one of the parts may be split over two acts as in ‘Macbeth’.
My play, ‘The Crucible’ is set in 1692, in Puritan Salem, a small village in Massachusetts. However my comparison text, ‘Macbeth’ is set in the 16th century, in Scotland. In 1692 in New England the times were really religious and anything linking a person to witchcraft was taken very seriously as were the Ten Commandments and regular attendance to church. If any of these ‘unwritten’ rules were broken then the person who committed these crimes would be considered a witch or a wizard and would have to confess that they were a witch and spare their lives or be hung for refusing to confess.
But in ‘Macbeth’, which is set in 1603 in Scotland the times were slightly different. The country was under the reign of James I and in memory of his ancestors Shakespeare wrote this play. The rise and fall of a king called Macbeth. It was about ho the witches conquered his mind and made him do something which against his own will.
In comparison to ‘The Crucible’, ‘Macbeth’ and ‘The Crucible’ both have the main character whose actions were changed by the actions of or the witches themselves. In ‘Macbeth’ the main character, Macbeth was told that he would be king by the witches, so he killed the king and he became king, but it had consequences. And in ‘The Crucible’ The main character, John proctor, tried to help the accused witches and instead due to the threat by the accusers to the high court, John Proctor was also accused of witchcraft.
We performed our play in the style of how times in the late 1600’s were, with women in plain black dresses, sashes and berets on their heads. They wore traditional clothing which was plain as they were very religious, the men wore trousers and an open necked shirt or cloaks and ponchos. So we wore similar clothing to this and our props also represented the time in which our play was set as did the staging and set design. This clothing was very similar to that of ‘Macbeth’.
In conclusion, I have enjoyed performing The Crucible even though my acting was at its weakest. It was a different experience as beforehand we had performed modern day drama therefore it was a challenge as well as a privilege to be able to perform this historical piece. I have learnt by performing this that to really do well you need to do three major things: understand your character (their background, who they are etc), know your lines and most importantly understand your lines so If you forget your line at least you should know around about what topic you need to be talking about.
