OCR A Level Drama and Theatre H459/46 Deconstructing Texts for Performance The Crucible. QUESTION PAPER AND MARKING SCHEME

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1 As a director, outline and explain your vision for directing the actors in this extract to bring out the playwright’s intentions. Annotate the script to show how you would do this. [30] .......... ................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................................... 3 © OCR 2021 Turn over 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 [Enter MARY WARREN, breathless. She is seventeen, a sub-servient, naïve, lonely girl.] MARY WARREN. What’ll we do? The village is out! I just come from the farm; the whole country’s talkin’ witchcraft! They’ll be callin’ us witches, Abby! MERCY [pointing and looking at MARY WARREN]. She means to tell, I know it. MARY WARREN. Abby, we’ve got to tell. Witchery’s a hangin’ error, a hangin’ like they done in Boston two year ago! We must tell the truth, Abby! You’ll only be whipped for dancin’, and the other things! ABIGAIL. Oh, we’ll be whipped! MARY WARREN. I never done none of it, Abby. I only looked! MERCY [moving menacingly toward MARY]. Oh, you’re a great one for lookin’, aren’t you, Mary Warren? What a grand peeping courage you have! [BETTY, on the bed, whimpers. ABIGAIL turns to her at once.] ABIGAIL. Betty? [She goes to BETTY.] Now, Betty, dear, wake up now. It’s Abigail. [She sits BETTY up and furiously shakes her.] I’ll beat you, Betty! [BETTY whimpers.] My, you seem improving. I talked to your papa and I told him everything. So there’s nothing to – BETTY [darts off the bed, frightened of ABIGAIL, and flattens herself against the wall]. I want my mama! ABIGAIL [with alarm, as she cautiously approaches BETTY]. What ails you, Betty? Your mama’s dead and buried. BETTY. I’ll fly to Mama. Let me fly! [She raises her arms as though to fly, and streaks for the window, gets one leg out.] 4 © OCR 2021 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 ABIGAIL [pulling her away from the window]. I told him everything; he knows now, he knows everything we – BETTY. You drank blood, Abby! You didn’t tell him that! ABIGAIL. Betty, you never say that again! You will never – BETTY. You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor! ABIGAIL [smashes her across the face]. Shut it! Now shut it! BETTY [collapsing on the bed]. Mama, Mama! [She dissolves into sobs.] ABIGAIL. Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down! [She goes to BETTY and roughly sits her up.] Now, you – sit up and stop this! [But BETTY collapses in her hands and lies inert on the bed.] MARY WARREN [with hysterical fright]. What’s got her? [ABIGAIL stares in fright at BETTY.] Abby, she’s going to die! It’s a sin to conjure, and we – ABIGAIL [starting for MARY]. I say shut it, Mary Warren! [Enter JOHN PROCTOR. On seeing him, MARY WARREN leaps in fright.] 5 © OCR 2021 Turn over 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 Proctor was a farmer in his middle thirties. He need not have been a partisan of any faction in the town, but there is evidence to suggest that he had a sharp and biting way with hypocrites. He was the kind of man – powerful of body, even-tempered, and not easily led – who cannot refuse support to partisans without drawing their deepest resentment. In Proctor’s presence a fool felt his foolishness instantly – and a Proctor is always marked for calumny therefore. But as we shall see, the steady manner he displays does not spring from an untroubled soul. He is a sinner, a sinner not only against the moral fashion of the time, but against his own vision of decent conduct. These people had no ritual for the washing away of sins. It is another trait we inherited from them, and it has helped to discipline us as well as to breed hypocrisy among us. Proctor, respected and even feared in Salem, has come to regard himself as a kind of fraud. But no hint of this has yet appeared on the surface, and as he enters from the crowded parlour below it is a man in his prime we see, with a quiet confidence and an unexpressed, hidden force. Mary Warren, his servant, can barely speak for embarrassment and fear. MARY WARREN. Oh! I’m just going home, Mr Proctor. PROCTOR. Be you foolish, Mary Warren? Be you deaf? I forbid you leave the house, did I not? Why shall I pay you? I am looking for you more often than my cows! MARY WARREN. I only come to see the great doings in the world. PROCTOR. I’ll show you a great doin’ on your arse one of these days. Now get you home; my wife is waitin’ with your work! [Trying to retain a shred of dignity, she goes slowly out.] 6 © OCR 2021 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 170 MERCY LEWIS [both afraid of him and strangely titillated]. I’d best be off. I have my Ruth to watch. Good morning, Mr Proctor. [MERCY sidles out. Since PROCTOR’s entrance, ABIGAIL has stood as though on tiptoe, absorbing his presence, wide-eyed. He glances at her, then goes to BETTY on the bed.] ABIGAIL. Gah! I’d almost forgot how strong you are, John Proctor! PROCTOR [looking at ABIGAIL now, the faintest suggestion of a knowing smile on his face]. What’s this mischief here? ABIGAIL [with a nervous laugh]. Oh, she’s only gone silly somehow. PROCTOR. The road past my house is a pilgrimage to Salem all morning. The town’s mumbling witchcraft. ABIGAIL. Oh, posh! [Winningly she comes a little closer, with a confidential, wicked air.] We were dancin’ in the woods last night, and my uncle leaped in on us. She took fright, is all. PROCTOR [his smile widening]. Ah, you’re wicked yet, aren’t y’! [A trill of expectant laughter escapes her and she dares come closer, feverishly looking into his eyes.] You’ll be clapped in the stocks before you’re twenty. [He takes a step to go, and she springs into his path.] ABIGAIL. Give me a word, John. A soft word. [Her concentrated desire destroys his smile.] PROCTOR. No, no, Abby. That’s done with. 7 © OCR 2021 Turn over 175 180 185 190 195 200 205 210 ABIGAIL [tauntingly]. You come five mile to see a silly girl fly? I know you better. PROCTOR [setting her firmly out of his path]. I come to see what mischief your uncle’s brewin’ now. [With final emphasis] Put it out of mind, Abby. ABIGAIL [grasping his hand before he can release her]. John – I am waitin’ for you every night. PROCTOR. Abby, I never give you hope to wait for me. ABIGAIL [now beginning to anger – she can’t believe it]. I have something better than hope, I think! PROCTOR. Abby, you’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you more. ABIGAIL. You’re surely sportin’ with me. PROCTOR. You know me better. ABIGAIL. I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I come near! Or did I dream that? It’s she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then and you do now! PROCTOR. Abby, that’s a wild thing to say – ABIGAIL. A wild thing may say wild things. But not so wild, I think. I have seen you since she put me out; I have seen you nights. PROCTOR. I have hardly stepped off my farm this seven-month. ABIGAIL. I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness. Do you tell me you’ve never looked up at my window? PROCTOR. I may have looked up. 8 © OCR 2021 215 220 225 230 235 240 245 250 255 ABIGAIL [now softening]. And you must. You are no wintry man. I know you, John. I know you. [She is weeping.] I cannot sleep for dreamin’; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I’d find you comin’ through some door. [She clutches him desperately.] PROCTOR [gently pressing her from him, with great sympathy but firmly]. Child – ABIGAIL [with a flash of anger]. How do you call me child! PROCTOR. Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched, Abby. ABIGAIL. Aye, but we did. PROCTOR. Aye, but we did not. ABIGAIL [with a bitter anger]. Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be – PROCTOR [angered – at himself as well]. You’ll speak nothin’ of Elizabeth! ABIGAIL. She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, snivelling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a – PROCTOR [shaking her]. Do you look for a whippin’? [A psalm is heard being sung below.] ABIGAIL [in tears]. I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretence Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet! 9 © OCR 2021 Turn over 260 265 270 275 280 285 290 295 [He turns abruptly to go out. She rushes to him.] John, pity me, pity me! [The words ‘going up to Jesus’ are heard in the psalm, and BETTY claps her ears suddenly and whines loudly.] ABIGAIL. Betty? [She hurries to BETTY, who is now sitting up and screaming. PROCTOR goes to BETTY as ABIGAIL is trying to pull her hands down, calling ‘Betty!’] PROCTOR [growing unnerved]. What’s she doing? Girl, what ails you? Stop that wailing! [The singing has stopped in the midst of this, and now PARRIS rushes in.] PARRIS. What happened? What are you doing to her? Betty! [He rushes to the bed, crying, ‘Betty, Betty!’ MRS PUTNAM enters, feverish with curiosity, and with her THOMAS PUTNAM and MERCY LEWIS. PARRIS, at the bed, keeps lightly slapping BETTY’s face, while she moans and tries to get up.] ABIGAIL. She heard you singin’ and suddenly she’s up and screamin’. MRS PUTNAM. The psalm! The psalm! She cannot bear to hear the Lord’s name! PARRIS. No, God forbid. Mercy, run to the doctor! Tell him what’s happened here! [MERCY LEWIS rushes out.] MRS PUTNAM. Mark it for a sign, mark it! [REBECCA NURSE, seventy-two, enters. She is white-haired, leaning upon her walking-stick.] PUTNAM [pointing at the whimpering BETTY]. That is a notorious sign of witchcraft afoot, Goody Nurse, a prodigious sign! 10 © OCR 2021 300 305 310 315 MRS PUTNAM. My mother told me that! When they cannot bear to hear the name of – PARRIS [trembling]. Rebecca, Rebecca, go to her, we’re lost. She suddenly cannot bear to hear the Lord’s – [GILES COREY, eighty-three, enters. He is knotted with muscle, canny, inquisitive, and still powerful.] REBECCA. There is hard sickness here, Giles Corey, so please to keep the quiet. GILES. I’ve not said a word. No one here can testify I’ve said a word. Is she going to fly again? I hear she flies. PUTNAM. Man, be quiet now! [Everything is quiet. REBECCA walks across the room to the bed. Gentleness exudes from her. BETTY is quietly whimpering, eyes shut. REBECCA simply stands over the child, who gradually quiets.] 11 © OCR 2021 Turn over 2 As a director, explain and justify how you could stage a performance of The Crucible to highlight the key moments of the play. 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