In preparation for our work, we looked at the first scene of Macbeth, involving the three witches. This made us think about the stereotypical images people have of witches. We also used patterns of voice and movement when casting a spell. This was different to our work on ‘The Crucible’ as we performed it in a much more stylised way, compared to the naturalistic style of the conversations and costume of ‘The Crucible’. I had also previously performed a devised piece of theatre called ‘Quinque’. In this piece we explored the different views of witchcraft over different time periods, one of which was in the seventeenth century. This piece showed the quick and irrational judgements people made towards witches, as they do in ‘The Crucible’, which helped me play the frantic Mary Warren, who gets very emotional about the charges that would be made against them if they accused of witchcraft.
My part in the first scene was fairly small, when I played Mary Warren, the servant to the Proctors. She is a very lonely and innocent girl who is shocked and scared by the witchcraft in the town. She is only a little younger than Abigail, yet feels very intimidated by her and her power. I showed this in my performance by not being able to look Abigail in the eye, instead bowing my head and fiddling with my sleeves. I also back way from Abigail, and try to get closer to Mercy for support when Abigail is threatening us in her speech: “Now look you….I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!” Mary also feels very intimidated by John Proctor as he is her employer. This is shown by the way she is startled by his entry, and to add to this effect, I started to make my voice stammer when she was offering excuses but being humiliated by him.
Our second scene was a duologue between Elizabeth and John Proctor. I played Elizabeth, and we had to try and create the very tense, unnerving atmosphere. The pace of the play had slowed down, and we had to make sure we varied tones of voices as it would have been very easy to have a hushed conversation with no movement. Because f the lack of movements, the ones we made had to be carefully planned, as though they had a purpose.
Our final piece went smoothly once everyone had learnt their lines, and the period costumes added the finishing touches to our characters. I feel our performance would have been better if we had been more focused in rehearsals, and I have learnt that concentration is very important for future productions.
