Synopsis

In a Puritan New England town, a group of girls spark a witch hunt that engulfs the community in hysteria, betrayal, and moral crisis.

Reverend Parris discovers his daughter Betty and niece Abigail dancing in the woods with other girls and his slave Tituba. When Betty falls into a strange stupor, whispers of witchcraft spread. John Proctor, a farmer with a sullied reputation due to his past affair with Abigail, becomes entangled in the escalating accusations when his wife Elizabeth is targeted. As the girls, led by the manipulative Abigail, begin accusing more townspeople of witchcraft, a court is established to try the accused. Proctor struggles to prove his wife’s innocence and expose the girls’ fraud, but finds himself fighting against a town gripped by fear and a court unwilling to admit its mistakes.

Miller’s powerful drama uses the historical Salem witch trials as an allegory for the anti-communist “witch hunts” of McCarthyism in 1950s America. Through its exploration of mass hysteria, abuse of power, and the tension between individual conscience and social conformity, The Crucible offers a searing indictment of ideological extremism and the dangers of unchecked authority. The play delves deep into themes of guilt, honour, and the price of maintaining one’s integrity in the face of overwhelming pressure to conform.