The Crucible Sample Essay On Playing Elizabeth Proctor
...the Heinemann edition of the text and I will be discussing how I would play the part of Elizabeth Proctor in the given scene.
This scene is taken from Act Four, the final act of the play and the tragic plot is drawing to an end. Both Elizabeth and John Proctor have been imprisoned on false charges of witchcraft. Elizabeth's pregnancy is, at present, sparing her from the possibility of hanging but her husband, John Proctor, in his vain attempts to protect his wife has inadvertently caused his own downfall and he faces the noose if he will not confess to the charges of witchcraft. His only possible life saving choice is to confess' to the false charges, have his land and farm confiscated, lose his good name and sense of honour and remain in jail. In this scene the figures of authority, fronted by Danforth, have pleaded with Elizabeth to try to convince John to confess' in order to spare his life for reasons that are generated by their own selfish fears with regard to the safety of the convictions. John and Elizabeth's past has been a troubled one as a result of his brief, adulterous affair with his maidservant Abigail Williams. This affair has become public knowledge and the strict religious morality of seventeenth century new world' Puritanism means that he will never be regarded with the esteem that he once was: adultery breaking one of the Ten Commandments which had to be strictly adhered to. The Proctors have not seen each other for three months as this scene opens and, although their past difficulties remain somewhere in both their minds, they are insignificant in relation to the tragedy of the situation that they are now faced with.
Elizabeth is already on stage as her husband enters. I would stand motionless as he appears at the doorway, my downstage hand gently rested across my slightly pregnant stomach, a position that I would return to frequently as...
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