February 26, 2025 • 47 mins
Professor and author Jane Barnette from the University of Kansas joins us for a discussion on how witch trial narratives continue to influence our cultural understanding.
She shares about her groundbreaking production of Kimberly Bellflower's "John Procter is the Villain" - a contemporary play that boldly reexamines "The Crucible" through the lens of #MeToo, premiering at the University of Kansas just days before its Broadway debut.
“John Procter is the Villain" considers Arthur Miller's messaging in "The Crucible," examining how Miller's fictional recreations of historical figures like John Proctor and Abigail Williams have shaped public perception of the Salem trials, often at the expense of historical accuracy. Consider with us, how theatrical reinterpretation can help reclaim silenced voices and how the term "witch hunt" has evolved in contemporary discourse.
Theater serves as a powerful medium for confronting and transforming our understanding of the past and modern society. Witch Hunt podcast examines historical witch trials and their continuing impact on society through conversations with experts, descendants, and advocates for justice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And when we put on theater, there's at least a little bit of
ritual and certainly magic that can occur both on stage and in
the audience. Welcome to Witch Hunt, the
podcast exploring the historicaland contemporary significance of
witch trials and their far reaching impact on our world.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. And I'm Sarah Jack.
(00:21):
On today's episode, we welcome back a special guest who's
helping us understand how centuries old witch trial
narratives continue to shape ourcultural consciousness in
profound and sometimes problematic ways.
Professor Jane Barnett joins us from the University of Kansas,
where she's directing an innovative production of John
(00:42):
Proctor's The Villain by Kimberly Bellflower, a play that
re examines Arthur Miller's The Crucible through the lens of the
Me Too movement and feminist consciousness.
Jane's production explores how the Salem witch trials have been
reinterpreted and sometimes misappropriated throughout
history, challenging us to reconsider what we think we know
(01:03):
about historical witchcraft accusations and their modern
parallels. What makes this conversation
particularly timely is that James University production
premieres just days before the play opens on Broadway, creating
a unique moment to explore how theater can transform our
understanding of historical narratives.
(01:24):
In our discussion, we'll examinehow Miller's fictional
recreation of historical figureslike John Proctor and Abigail
Williams has shaped public perception of the Salem witch
trials, often obscuring the historical reality of the actual
victims. We'll also explore how the term
witch hunt itself has been weaponized in contemporary
(01:44):
discourse, and how theatrical reinterpretation can help
reclaim silence voices from history.
So join us for a fascinating conversation about theater
history, power dynamics, and thetransformative potential of
confronting difficult narrativesfrom our past.
To be clear, we are primarily discussing Arthur Miller's
(02:04):
fictional character of John Proctor, rather than the real
person, John Proctor, who was hanged for supposed witchcraft.
So when we say John Proctor is avillain, we mean the fictional
John Proctor, not the authentic witch trial victim.
Welcome back to Witch Hunt Podcast, Jane Barnett, it's so
wonderful to have you back. What have you been up to since
(02:26):
you were here? Well, thank you so much for
having me. I'm so delighted to be back.
And yeah, I've been pretty busy.I've been directing a play at
the university where I work at the University of Kansas.
Can you remind us in our audience about your expertise
and passion and how it relates to your current project?
(02:47):
Absolutely. So I'm an adaptation dramaturg,
which sounds very specialized and in some ways is.
But that just basically means that I work behind the scenes
with a lot of live theater productions, especially ones
that are adapted from literatureor any other source for the
stage. And so my first book is about
(03:08):
adaptation dramaturgy, but my second book, which came out last
year, is about which characters on stages and screens, in
particular ones that are adaptations.
So it's sort of in my wheelhouse, but the way that I
overlap with Y'all is obviously my focus on witches and
witchcraft. So yeah, this play is is also
(03:31):
somewhat in that wheelhouse, although quite different from
the plays that I talk about in my book.
And what is bringing about this project now?
Oh gosh, so the play is called. John Proctor is the villain and
the play is set in 2018, right at the height of the Me Too
(03:53):
movement. And arguably right now is a time
that some of the same kind of themes are re emerging that we
saw in popular culture and certainly in politics in
2018-2019, 2020. And those are the key years when
(04:13):
I started really, or when I completed the research for the
book that I wrote and published last year, Witch Fulfillment.
So it's Deja Vu all over again. But this particular play, yeah,
it's it's a newer play. And so it's an opportunity not
only for the students at the University of Kansas to get to
(04:36):
do a newer play, but because it's engaging with the Me Too
movement and because it is a play about female rage in many
ways, it is a really important and useful outlet for the
student actors and frankly, for me.
So we have there's multiple versions of John Proctor in
(04:56):
people's minds. There's basically the man, the
myth, the legend. Which John Proctor are we
discussing today? That's such a good question
because of course, yes, we have the John Proctor who was hanged
for the crime of witchcraft and obviously that's an important
one to reference in this podcast.
But this is really a play that engages with the John Proctor
(05:19):
character that's in Arthur Miller's 1953 the Crucible play.
So it's the and famously Arthur Miller took the 60 year old man
who was in Salem and was executed the actual figure, the
factual figure, and made him about 35 years old in The
(05:40):
Crucible. And potentially more
importantly, but also relevant, if nothing else, he took the
character of Abigail Williams based on an actual factual human
who was 11 years old in the reality and made her 16 years
old to sort of make it better. But still, it's, you know, it's
(06:01):
an affair between a 16 year old and a 35 year old.
And in Miller's play, by today'sstandards, I, I would say is
still problematic, just of a different degree than an 11 year
old and a 60 year old that we don't even have any real
evidence that they had an affair.
These are different characters. So when I say John Proctor is
the villain, or rather the titleof the play says that the
(06:24):
playwright, Kimberly Bellflower,is really responding to Arthur
Miller's play and the way that arguably, right, Arthur Miller's
play has become shorthand for how people encounter and or know
about the Salem witch trials. But there's so much
misinformation that's in that fictional account.
(06:45):
So yeah, I'm just so grateful for podcasts like y'all's
because you helped to bring someof that real information to the
public. In what ways do we find John
Proctor villainous? So let me just start by saying
spoiler alert, because the play unfolds in a way that's not
(07:06):
exactly a mystery, but it works best when there are surprises.
And the play is set in a high school classroom, so honors lit
junior year, and they're going to read The Crucible.
And so there's this very charismatic, very beloved male
teacher, Mr. Smith. And we have several students who
(07:30):
are 1617 years old in the classroom.
And what we discover is that we've got sort of a meta
theatrical thing happening, right?
We've got an opportunity within the classroom that's on stage to
stage parts of the Crucible as aproject, hypothetical project
(07:50):
for these students in this hypothetical classroom.
As they are doing it and researching the Crucible,
they're discovering some of the same things I just mentioned.
They're discovering the license that Arthur Miller took in doing
this fictional account, and especially the young feminist,
because there's also this feminist club that some of the
(08:10):
girls in the classroom have started and they basically are
starting to recognize that thesechanges that Arthur Miller made
might have been really helpful for him as he was going through
his own dissolvement of his marriage.
But now it's created a narrativethat is problematic, especially
(08:30):
as things in their small town, it's set in a small town, things
in their small town start to come to light because of the
attention that the Me Too movement has put on believing
women and trying to really unearth stories of sexual
assault and and sexual harassment that have been
(08:51):
occurring without necessarily people believing the women who
are telling about it. And so John Proctor's the
villain, because one of the things that we surmise from this
play, and and frankly, there's alot of research that supports
this possible interpretation, isthat the reason that these young
(09:12):
girls in Salem were having fits and that they seem to be acting
so Askew potentially was that they were having PTSD.
Not only because there was so much violence during that time,
which was obviously also true, but potentially because the men
in the town were not respecting any kind of notion of consent.
(09:36):
And so there could have been allsorts of sexual assaults that
was occurring and potentially this may have been a way that
the young women slash girls werejust trying to get attention to
themselves and trying to have a voice.
And so in that regard, if we if we see it that way, then
especially the fictional John Proctor becomes the villain here
(10:00):
because 16 is, you know, it's below the age of consent.
And so even if some 35 year old,and that's about the age by the
way of the the teacher in this classroom, a 35 year old wants
to have an affair with a 16 yearold, we would consider that
within the realm of me too. Thank you for that explanation
(10:26):
and for introducing us to the play.
How is your production differentthan the ways that this play has
been staged before? Oh, it's actually really
exciting. And I will say I talked to the
playwright when we were in earlyconversations about staging it
at KU. And I say that because I'm going
(10:46):
to tell you some kind of radicalthings that we're doing.
But we did talk to the playwright and she was very much
on board. And the most exciting thing is
that we're going to close our play on March 13th, and on March
20th it opens on Broadway. Not our play, but a professional
version of this play. So it's really exciting to have
(11:06):
this kind of freedom and to workon it on a college campus where
we can do things that a lot of professional theaters can't.
So that being said, the big change is that I have double
cast the play. So there are two teacher roles
and those roles are static. So those actors are the same in
both casts, but I basically doubled the number of actors to
(11:29):
play that the student characters.
And what that allows me to do isthat on the nights that are
focused on one cast, the other cast serves as other students in
the classroom. So it helps to fill out the
classroom and to create a more realistic classroom setting.
And it just creates the atmosphere better.
(11:49):
And then on the other nights, itgoes the opposite way.
So it's not a double cast in so far as there's nights off for
half of the cast or almost half of the cast.
They're still very much an ensemble.
But what that has created, whichis really exciting, is that with
two actors per student role, it's been remarkable how much
(12:10):
they've been able to talk to each other as actors about
choices that they're making for their characters.
And we have some pretty different choices, but they're
all grounded in the text and they're all making a lot of
sense for the characters. So it's really beautiful as a
director to see just the shape that it takes when it 1 cast is
(12:31):
sort of playing the so-called leads versus the other cast
playing the so-called leads. I can't imagine, like, how
exciting that must be for you, but also the students with the
timing of this, how incredibly special.
Yeah, we've talked about that. I mean, you know, I'm a
(12:52):
Dramaturk by trade, so of courseI'm going to ask these big
questions of why this play now? But I also have a drama Turk
working with me who has been talking to the student actors
about this. But it has been especially in
recent weeks, right? I mean, it's hard.
These students, many of them, I mean, I have, I would say a very
(13:13):
diverse cast and many of them are in minoritarian kinds of
positions, right? So whether a non binary I've got
a trans actor, I've got actors of color, and in all sorts of
different ways, these students have been feeling the effects of
recent decision making in our United States government that
(13:35):
have made them feel less than human, that have made them feel
like they are in grave danger. And so being able to come to
rehearsal and not only put that out of their mind for a moment,
but in a fictional world, get toexact a certain kind of revenge
(13:55):
has been really, really fulfilling.
Yeah, and that speaks to so much, to a lot of what the
plays, underlying undertones are, is about power dynamics and
how people relate to each other.Who's got the power?
Yeah, absolutely. It's, I would call it a feminist
(14:16):
dark comedy because there's justno question that this is a play
that is meant to reclaim the voices of women who have been
silenced. Whether we think of that from
the perspective of the young women, juniors in high school
who are female identifying, who find that they're not getting
(14:36):
the kind of respect or voice that they see the male
counterparts getting, Or if we're talking about the actual
characters in Miller's play. And more to the point, frankly,
and I know you all appreciate this, the actual people on whom
those characters are based. I just, I can't stop thinking
about, I mean, I, I might start crying because I think about the
(14:59):
11 year old Abigail Williams andwhat it must have taken for her
to just be in the position she was in.
And I don't know, how does a person survive?
So yeah, it's those power dynamics are very much an
undercurrent in this play. Would you like to tell us about
some of the characters in the play?
(15:21):
Would I? I think the ones I'm most drawn
to, I'm drawn to all of them. But I, I personally, I know for
a fact that if I were acting in college, I would have been cast
as Beth. This is not a surprise to
anybody who's read the play. Beth is basically a nerdy
student who's nervous and very into school.
(15:45):
And yeah, basically it's me to AT and much less worldly than
the other students in the class.And that was me growing up.
When I was in high school, I wanted to know more about things
outside of my small town, but I was also very focused on doing
really well in my high school. And that's the same as Beth.
And she just wants the teacher to approve of her.
(16:07):
And so they have a really tight relationship, which is, on the
one hand, really beautiful. But then there's another
character who is Shelby. And Shelby is not present on
stage when we first meet all theother characters, all the other
students, And we don't know why she's gone, but we start to
discover why when she comes back.
(16:27):
And she's a fascinating character and really beautifully
written by Kimberly Bellflower. It's clear the care that she has
taken with this character and with all of the characters, but
especially as we come to discover, Shelby has been
through more than anybody shouldhave to go through at the tender
age of 16, including the fact that she has had instances of
(16:53):
adult men taking advantage of her sexually.
And so she's incredibly resilient, but she's also really
wounded. And to see young actors really
work with a character that has this kind of three
dimensionality and respect for the survivorship of having lived
(17:14):
through that kind of experience.I mean, it is it's it's really a
gift, but it's also, it is a play that all of the emotions
happen. There's lots of laughter, but
then there's also probably tears.
In what ways does the Crucible intersect and relate with the
students experiences in their own small town?
(17:39):
So I teach at the University of Kansas, which is in Lawrence,
but most of our students come from rural small towns.
So early in the rehearsal process.
There's a reference in the play that that talks about it being a
one stop, 1 stoplight town, and I've never lived in a small town
(18:00):
like that, but I would say more than half of my student actors
have. So they were really sharing what
it's like and how true it is, the sort of saying that
everybody knows everybody's business.
They were explaining that that'sactually definitely a thing and
the notion of everybody going tothe same church or that you
would go to church in the 1st place, like all of that is
(18:21):
assumed. And part of how many of these
student actors actually grew up beyond that.
There's at least one and probably more, unfortunately,
actors who have experienced things that are similar to what
Shelby goes through and what we discover about Shelby.
I had actually two nights ago one of the actors said to me,
(18:44):
but always means a lot to me as an actor to do a show, she said.
But at this particular role in this particular play hits so
close to home that it feels likea kind of exorcism every time
I'm up there because, you know, the play ends in this dance that
is maybe my favorite part of thewhole thing.
(19:05):
It's what kind of drew me to it.I just, I love the song that
it's choreographed to. It's green light by Lorde.
But I also just think it's so powerful.
We frankly too often have plays that are just talking or plays
that are just musicals. But I like it when we start to
(19:27):
kind of have a little bit of each and having that dance kind
of gives it a little bit more ofa musical flavour.
It's not a musical, but a littlebit more like that.
But yeah, that dance feels like a certain kind of exorcism for
that particular actor. And I don't know for sure, but I
can sense it just based on the way that they respond, that
(19:50):
there are other actors who have a lot of familiarity with these
characters as well. Not only because these are deep
human experiences. The human experience element is
so evident. And then it's such a recent
piece. And then we're still in the
(20:11):
midst of so much of this. So I can't imagine that
describing it as an exorcism really answers.
I mean, it really speaks. I mean, that is a really good
way to express it I think. Yeah, Sarah, I, I see what
you're sort of struggling with. And I want to tell you, I feel
(20:32):
that, right. Like as a director, there are
moments where I get so emotionalbecause I'm seeing something
happening in front of me that I'm so frustrated.
That can't happen on a much larger level, right?
And I mean, that's beauty of art.
It's the beauty of theater and other kinds of art that we can
(20:53):
kind of create small worlds where we can dream about
different outcomes. But ideally we do that as
rehearsal for the real world. And right now it's just such AI
don't know about y'all, but I just feel so powerless.
And it is, it's quite a moment to be someone who writes about,
(21:14):
thinks about, researches witch hunts and witch witchcraft.
Because, you know, it's been at these moments of history where
we have seen both an upsurge in terms of people who are
practicing witchcraft and unfortunately, also a backlash
against it. And I I feel it coming.
(21:35):
This really makes me wonder too about the term witch hunt.
Does this production address that?
Yeah, it does. It addresses the part of witch
hunts that are historically accurate, sort of in so far as
the high school teacher in this fictional world does at least
(21:56):
talk about the people who were executed and that there were
false out accusations and at least there is acknowledgement
of that. But very quickly, I would say
most of the play really shows usin in stark relief what this
other use of witch hunt is, right.
(22:16):
Like as it has been used since Arthur Miller with the
allegorical kind of idea of trying to keep somebody
subversive quiet. And of course it's been misused
by people who are actually people who have a whole lot of
power, but they're getting nervous because somebody has
(22:37):
called them out on something andthey're going to use the phrase
witch hunt to distract us from what they actually did.
So it's a complicated phrase. It's a complicated allegory, but
hopefully y'all probably feel meon this.
It can be so darn offensive whenit is used in ways that are
(23:00):
meant to support the status quo and people who have historically
been very anti witch. So yeah, a play that not only
has the phrase in the text and deals with it sort of in the
most literal way, like on stage talking about it, but then
almost all of the action that unfolds after that is
(23:22):
resoundingly about the concept of a witch hunt as an allegory.
I definitely see how in an age when we have basically three
kinds of witch hunts or uses that I can see of the term witch
hunt. It's the literal accusation of
(23:45):
witchcraft against somebody and persecution because of that.
There is that allegorical witch hunt of real the vulnerable and
powerless being trampled on by the powerful just to maintain
the status quo, which he's spoken about.
And then there's these powerful people abusing the term and that
(24:07):
really frustrates me so much. But I can see in the play how
empowering it is because the characters do get to speak their
truth. Yes, and I think what the play
handles so delicately and yet insightfully is that question of
belief, right? So it's one thing to finally
(24:30):
speak one's truth, but it never feels resolved if there's mostly
disbelief happening with people,are there's so much doubt
created. And historically speaking, the
ways that we have marginalized women who have spoken out
against being mistreated by men or anybody has been to call them
(24:52):
crazy, has been to call them a slut, has been to, you know,
suggest that they are evil. And all of those allegations
come up and are even kind of tried on, if you will, by one of
the characters whose father. So we have a character named Ivy
in the play who is one of the 1617 year old girls in this
(25:16):
group. And she has a father who is she
comes from a wealthy family, a really well known prominent sort
of person in this small town. And her father gets accused of
some kind of sexual misconduct. And at one point she is
basically taking up this position of, well, we have to
have trials. And we, if we can believe the
(25:38):
people who have made these accusations, she says, and if
there are proven to be true, then we should really punish
those men. But if not, we should really
punish those women at least as much.
And that thinking, you know, I certainly understand, like if
there's a false allegation, that's I guess one thing.
But you know, what is the benefit of going out on a limb,
(26:02):
especially at the age 16 or 17, and trying to falsely accuse
somebody who is much more powerful than you?
Most of the time when people aretalking about this false
allegation kind of stuff, it is that third case that you're
talking about where it's actually a powerful person
trying to not to deflect. What is the accountability
(26:24):
coming for them? What strategies do the men you
had mentioned that one of the characters fathers gets accused.
What strategies do these men whoget accused used to silence the
accusers? Yeah, we see one character more
(26:45):
fully enacted who is been accused of something, and so we
see a little bit more with that character.
But in the case of Ivy's father,we hear it through Ivy's
recounting that, you know, it's a, it's a typical thing,
especially from someone who has wealth, that he's managed to
find this young woman another position in another nearby town.
(27:09):
And so basically he's gotten herout of his orbit so that he
doesn't have to worry about her allegations having too much
effect. But the but the primary way that
we hear about it is that mainly the character of the accuser
keeps getting called into question.
The character of the good name of which is of course, a central
(27:32):
theme in Arthur Miller's play. In terms of if you want to think
of John Proctor as a hero, then you have to really hold a
certain kind of value on the notion of not only the status
quo, but more importantly, the reputation, the good name that
hinges on, in the case of both The Crucible and John Proctor's,
(27:57):
the villain. It hinges on a world where
somehow we can blame a child forseducing an adult.
And that's for me, just a hard stop.
I just, it's very frustrating. And we're in a a time period
right now, arguably, where therehave been more and more sort of
(28:19):
pushes for traditional values, especially for women.
And certainly in terms of after Roe V.
Wade was overturned, we've seen more and more calls for why
aren't young women having more babies and why aren't young
women, you know, settling. And to me, that's a similar kind
of rhetoric, right? Because it's a rhetoric that
(28:41):
wants to establish before reallyadulthood, try to sort of
capture a young woman, slash girl into a marriage kind of
contract that keeps her from necessarily becoming a full
adult 1st. And we see that in the play from
(29:03):
the character Raelyn, because Raelyn has been dating the same
person in this play for seven years and she's only like 17
years old. So it's like from 10 to 17 she's
been dating, or maybe it's 9 to 16, but the point being, for
seven years, half of her life, she's been dating the same boy
slash young man. And that is not uncommon in
(29:26):
small towns, especially when thesort of central guiding moral
compass is an evangelical kind of Christian perspective.
It's that notion of, oh, yeah, well, you should just stay with
one person, and that way you cansave yourself to marriage, and
that way you can have just one partner your whole life.
(29:46):
But often these standards are different for men than they are
for women. And most of the time, they're
applied to much younger women than the men in question.
And I feel like that's where a lot of the truth of this play
kind of comes into full relief. And and one of the things that
Bellflower does so eloquently isshow us that arc with Ray Lynn,
(30:10):
because at first, so many questions that she's asking, she
almost ends every line. And I don't know, I don't know.
She keeps saying, I don't know, I don't know.
But I feel like a lot of young women can relate to that.
There's a stage of your life where you're like, who am I?
And you really can't necessarilymake that makes sense in your
(30:32):
hometown. You almost have to move out or
at least get older and learn more before you can truly start
to decide what it is you want tobe and what you want to do.
By the end of the play, there's this beautiful monologue that
Raelyn gives as part of her final project with Shelby.
And in that monologue, she basically has this vision of a
(30:56):
world where women can say their truth and they're believed, and
that's very powerful to see. What is that going to take?
Yeah, Well, I mean, I'm going toget, I'm going to get crunk on
(31:20):
you here, but I think we have toget rid of capitalism.
There, I said it. How about it?
I mean I really think that Sylvia Fededici, one of her
books is behind me so you're probably familiar.
Caliban and the Witch Women, Witches, witch hunts.
She writes about the early moments of the European witch
(31:44):
craze and talks about the need for enclosure that led to
capitalism. So the desire to own land in the
1st place, which is such an antiwitch concept.
What person owns land? That's so weird.
But of course capitalism relies on the notion of who is a
landowner and who is not a landowner.
(32:04):
And Federici really connects thebeginning of capitalism to the
singling out of women who resisted it as witches.
And to be clear, I want to acknowledge that.
I'm sure there are. I know that there are actual
witches out there, right? But in the history, this has
(32:27):
been part of the way that subversive individuals, not just
women, but anybody who pushed back against the power that was
trying to seize land, for example, that was a really
successful way of keeping them out of power and seizing their
land. And that's certainly a
compelling argument for what happened in Salem, right between
(32:50):
the village and the town. And I'm sure you're duly aware
of all of that history. But I think what it will take,
and that's why it's so scary because like, you know, that's a
big that's a big thing. But I think it takes a post
capitalist world. Like we have to think about who
are we and what do we really want?
Is money and capital and land the be all, end all?
(33:15):
Or might there just be somethingelse?
One of the things that you mentioned about tying young
ladies down before they've started their lives, I just
think that was really meaningful.
And one of the human advocacy things that are really getting
(33:36):
attention right now is making child marriage illegal
addressing. A lot of places are working hard
to address that. And then I'm so I'm thinking
about these lives that don't start, but and thinking about
the characters in your play, realizing things.
(33:59):
What if there was a sequel or some of these characters?
Is some Is any one of those girls going to come out of there
with their life change because of what's happening in that
classroom? I mean, I think Ray, that's part
of why I love Raylyn so much in terms of that arc.
(34:21):
I think Raylyn does change and that we actually, it's
beautiful. We get to see it in that last
scene. And so yes, I think after that,
Raylyn really embraces feminism and I think she goes on to
college and really embraces knowledge and who knows what she
(34:41):
becomes. Maybe she's a lawyer, maybe
she's a who knows? But whatever it is that she ends
up doing in the world, I bet she's trying to make the world a
better place for people like Shelby, her best friend.
And Shelby is irrevocably changed.
And she even has a moment where she's talking to Raelynn, And
Raelynn says something like, I know the answer's probably no,
(35:04):
but are you OK? And Shelby answers by saying,
yeah, no, I'm definitely not OK,and I won't be for a long time.
But she at least recognizes thatmaybe with counseling and maybe
with certain steps that she can take to regain her sense of
self, that there might be a different path forward.
(35:26):
And to me that that that dance and that performance that ends
the play because, again, they'rein this high school classroom
that's been assigned to read theplay and to do an interpretive
project. And maybe it's me as a teacher
myself thinking, oh, isn't it great that maybe in a classroom
setting, especially one that deals with drama or theatre,
(35:47):
that maybe by enacting these roles, there could be a certain
kind of release or realization that occurs.
And I really hope that's true. I feel like it is true.
I've seen it happen in my students.
And I feel like in that classroom, what what else is
happening is that Mason, who's one of the boy characters, and
(36:08):
at first we see him as someone who's just like failing all of
his classes, doesn't really care.
He's just there some kind of like class clown.
By the end of it, he's saying things like, I really like smart
girls and he's starting to pick up on some of the things from
the feminism club. And I think, you know, she has
Mason stand up and start doing some of the dance at the end.
(36:31):
He's the only boy who does that or young man.
And I feel like he changes as well because of this club,
because of what he has seen, because of how he starts to
recognize that his best friend Lee is maybe not such a good guy
after all. So, yeah, I really do think
(36:52):
believe that art has the abilityto transform, especially when it
is something that's like a brokenness that people have.
It has that, you know, catharsisor exorcism possibility.
And and frankly, I think it's a little bit like witchcraft, like
(37:12):
there's a little magic there. I I do think that when you put
on theater, I mean, historicallythis is true in terms of like
the ancient Greeks, right? Like they did theater as a form
of worship for Dionysus, right? And before that, even I, I think
that even today, even in 2025, when we put on theater, there's
at least a little bit of ritual and certainly magic that can
(37:36):
occur both on stage and in the audience.
And I don't know if you've ever felt that way, but sometimes
when you're watching a play, like you just feel like all of
your goosebumps happen and you just sort of, you just feel
different sometimes. I think it's so important.
You pointed out that transformative power the play
(37:56):
has on the audience, as well as the characters within it and the
cast and crew. That's putting it on everybody
who experiences this play. I think there's that opportunity
for a transformation. Yeah, I hope so.
And you know, it's funny, I justgot back from speaking at a
(38:17):
university women's club, which has university women in it, but
also a lot of emeriti professors.
So, you know, of a certain age, right?
And so their interest in this play was remarkable.
And I think what a cool audience, if we can have
audiences that are not just sortof of the same generation, the
(38:39):
Gen. Z, where this play is kind of in
many ways written in the language of and for Gen.
Z folk. But I also think it has the
potential to be very transformative for older women.
And I'm hoping to see, you know,people of all ages and certainly
men in the audiences well, because it it has the potential
(39:00):
to really start some important conversations.
How do people attend one of yourproduct one of your nights?
Or I'm assuming it's at night, but I guess it could be any
time. Yeah, we have one matinee, but
yeah, everything else is at night.
So the play runs the March 7th through the 13th.
So it's six performances only, but they can go to kutheatre.com
(39:23):
and they'll see John Proctor's villain as one of the
performances that's listed there.
We are also working to make someof the dress rehearsals
available because with the double cast, a lot of people
have expressed interest in trying to see two nights, one of
each cast, which is great, but it's, you know, kind of a
(39:44):
limited audience. So we're trying to sort of open
it up, make sure that as many people that want to see it can
see it. So yeah, it's going to be really
special to share this with the audiences.
Yeah, I'm really excited for youand for the audiences.
It sounds like, you know, this is a unique production of the
(40:04):
play. And also the timing is so
thrilling. That's right before the Broadway
play starring Sadie Sink begins.So.
I mean, yeah, that has been really fun.
And of course, the actors are both thrilled and terrified that
they get to kind of build up to this Broadway thing.
(40:27):
In fact, one of them has alreadygotten a ticket for a preview
night in New York. And they were telling me they
were like, I don't even know howI'm getting there, but somehow I
will get there. That's great.
Yeah, it's all. Exciting.
Is there any other anything elseabout this experience or the
(40:48):
story that you want to be sure to touch on?
Yeah, I, I don't and this will be come as a surprise.
So I'll just give you all a heads up because I forgot to
mention this, but this is something that might be at least
useful to share on the 12th through the 13th of March, or
maybe it's the 11th through the 12th.
But certainly on the 12th, we have a special guest who's
coming in from Pennsylvania. She's a colleague in the field.
(41:11):
So she is also a theater historian, a drama Turk.
But her work, her name is Bess Rowan.
And her work is she's currently writing a book about Mean Girls
and depictions of also of teenage rage on stage.
And there've been a lot of really cool plays that have come
out in recent years and also on screens where we get a chance to
(41:33):
kind of see how that teenage stage of coming into womanhood
can really ignite some interesting kinds of
relationships. And so she's coming to give a
pre show talk on the 12th and she'll be in town to see one
night of what we call the town cast and one night of what we're
(41:57):
calling the village cast. Oh.
Cool me. So.
I see what you did there. Thank you.
I was like, I don't think I evenhave to explain this to them,
no. That's fun.
That's fun. Yeah, yeah.
So that's going to be a really neat thing anytime we have
people come in to do pre show talks, I think it really just
(42:18):
sort of heightens the engagementthat are especially university
audience can have with the the piece.
But in this case Bess is just I mean such a lovely human.
I'm I'm very excited for her to have a chance to interact with
our students so. This is really like one of those
once in a lifetime moments for this group.
(42:42):
Yeah, well, and I can't wait to write about it because I have
been talking to my assistant director and maybe there's just
a million people out there doingdouble casts and we've never
heard of it. But it's a fairly unusual thing
to do. And just every night having
rehearsal with, it's kind of weird having two casts.
And so you'll block the scene with one cast, and then it's
(43:03):
like, OK, let's get the townies up here.
OK, let's, let's work with the village people.
It is a very different way of directing.
I can't put it into words yet. I'm still sort of noodling on
it. But I definitely want to write
about it. I feel like there's something
there to say. Yeah.
So great. Thank you so much for this
conversation. Mary Bingham has a new minute
(43:25):
with Mary. Jane referred to some of the
accusers in 1692 as experiencingwhat is known today as PTSD.
Based on a statement given by Samuel Sibley on March 25th,
16921 could surmise this could have been true from Mary Warren,
(43:46):
John Proctor's 20 year old servant.
In a conversation with Sibley, Proctor said he was going to
fetch his Jade home and beat her.
Proctor also revealed that he previously threatened to beat
Mary if she had fits and kept her close to her wheel, meaning
probably her spinning wheel, andthat would have kept her
(44:09):
occupied. Living under the constant threat
of beatings would have been traumatic enough for Mary.
Also, both of her parents were already deceased, leaving her
without a grounded support system and little chance of
becoming a formidable suitor forsomeone, leaving her with almost
no chance to better her social status.
(44:32):
Thank you, Mary. And now Sarah has End witch
hunts news. Historical injustices mirror
ongoing witchcraft accusation, persecution worldwide.
Our mission to end witch hunts rightly connects colonial
American victims to those suffering from witchcraft
accusations today. By breaking the silence around
these cases, we forge a path toward justice for all victims.
(44:56):
AST and PRESENT, our campaign for colonial witch trial
exonerations continues to gain momentum following Connecticut's
landmark 2023 passage of HJ 34A resolution concerning certain
witchcraft convictions in colonial Connecticut.
This success is now followed by similar legislative efforts
(45:17):
across two former colonies, withtwo critical initiatives
currently needing public supportand community advocacy.
Massachusetts HD 3054, an act exonerating certain individuals
accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, seeks
historic justice for eight pre Salem victims, including five
(45:38):
who were executed in Boston. Maryland's HJ 2, exonerating
those accused, tried or convicted of witchcraft in the
province of Maryland prior to the American Revolution, aims to
address their colonial era witchtrial convictions.
Both bills are currently in committee and will require
community advocacy of public testimony for advancement.
(46:00):
These victims can no longer speak to their own innocence.
We can do that, You can do that.These efforts build on decades
of progress, from the initial Massachusetts 1957 Act to the
recent Elizabeth Johnson Junior exoneration in 2022 and the 2023
passage of absolution in Connecticut.
(46:21):
However, many colonial witch trial victims remain without
recognition or justice. The current initiatives
acknowledge that witch hunts extended beyond Salem, affecting
innocent men, women, and children across multiple
colonies. Your voice is crucial.
There are two important petitions for you to sign now.
Please sign to support.massachusetts@change.org/witchtrials
(46:47):
and also please sign to support.maryland@change.org/MD.
Witch Trials. Whether you're a descendant or
concerned citizen, you can support these bills by emailing
words of support to the legislators, voting, submitting
written testimony of support, orspeaking in support at the
approaching committee hearings. Connecticut's successful
(47:09):
testimonies provided excellent template for effective advocacy.
This work connects directly to our mission of ending witch
hunts globally, recognizing thathistorical injustices mirror
ongoing persecution. Join us in breaking the silence
and securing long overdue justice for these victims.
For guidance on submitting testimony or getting involved,
(47:31):
visit our website or reference Connecticut's public testimony
records from HJ 34. Links are in the show notes.
Thank you, Sarah. You're welcome.
And thank you for joining us on Witch Hunt.
You should check out our robust catalog of expert discussions.
Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
And when we put on theater, there's at least a little bit of
ritual and certainly magic that can occur both on stage and in
the audience. Welcome to Witch Hunt, the
podcast exploring the historicaland contemporary significance of
witch trials and their far reaching impact on our world.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. And I'm Sarah Jack.
(00:21):
On today's episode, we welcome back a special guest who's
helping us understand how centuries old witch trial
narratives continue to shape ourcultural consciousness in
profound and sometimes problematic ways.
Professor Jane Barnett joins us from the University of Kansas,
where she's directing an innovative production of John
(00:42):
Proctor's The Villain by Kimberly Bellflower, a play that
re examines Arthur Miller's The Crucible through the lens of the
Me Too movement and feminist consciousness.
Jane's production explores how the Salem witch trials have been
reinterpreted and sometimes misappropriated throughout
history, challenging us to reconsider what we think we know
(01:03):
about historical witchcraft accusations and their modern
parallels. What makes this conversation
particularly timely is that James University production
premieres just days before the play opens on Broadway, creating
a unique moment to explore how theater can transform our
understanding of historical narratives.
(01:24):
In our discussion, we'll examinehow Miller's fictional
recreation of historical figureslike John Proctor and Abigail
Williams has shaped public perception of the Salem witch
trials, often obscuring the historical reality of the actual
victims. We'll also explore how the term
witch hunt itself has been weaponized in contemporary
(01:44):
discourse, and how theatrical reinterpretation can help
reclaim silence voices from history.
So join us for a fascinating conversation about theater
history, power dynamics, and thetransformative potential of
confronting difficult narrativesfrom our past.
To be clear, we are primarily discussing Arthur Miller's
(02:04):
fictional character of John Proctor, rather than the real
person, John Proctor, who was hanged for supposed witchcraft.
So when we say John Proctor is avillain, we mean the fictional
John Proctor, not the authentic witch trial victim.
Welcome back to Witch Hunt Podcast, Jane Barnett, it's so
wonderful to have you back. What have you been up to since
(02:26):
you were here? Well, thank you so much for
having me. I'm so delighted to be back.
And yeah, I've been pretty busy.I've been directing a play at
the university where I work at the University of Kansas.
Can you remind us in our audience about your expertise
and passion and how it relates to your current project?
(02:47):
Absolutely. So I'm an adaptation dramaturg,
which sounds very specialized and in some ways is.
But that just basically means that I work behind the scenes
with a lot of live theater productions, especially ones
that are adapted from literatureor any other source for the
stage. And so my first book is about
(03:08):
adaptation dramaturgy, but my second book, which came out last
year, is about which characters on stages and screens, in
particular ones that are adaptations.
So it's sort of in my wheelhouse, but the way that I
overlap with Y'all is obviously my focus on witches and
witchcraft. So yeah, this play is is also
(03:31):
somewhat in that wheelhouse, although quite different from
the plays that I talk about in my book.
And what is bringing about this project now?
Oh gosh, so the play is called. John Proctor is the villain and
the play is set in 2018, right at the height of the Me Too
(03:53):
movement. And arguably right now is a time
that some of the same kind of themes are re emerging that we
saw in popular culture and certainly in politics in
2018-2019, 2020. And those are the key years when
(04:13):
I started really, or when I completed the research for the
book that I wrote and published last year, Witch Fulfillment.
So it's Deja Vu all over again. But this particular play, yeah,
it's it's a newer play. And so it's an opportunity not
only for the students at the University of Kansas to get to
(04:36):
do a newer play, but because it's engaging with the Me Too
movement and because it is a play about female rage in many
ways, it is a really important and useful outlet for the
student actors and frankly, for me.
So we have there's multiple versions of John Proctor in
(04:56):
people's minds. There's basically the man, the
myth, the legend. Which John Proctor are we
discussing today? That's such a good question
because of course, yes, we have the John Proctor who was hanged
for the crime of witchcraft and obviously that's an important
one to reference in this podcast.
But this is really a play that engages with the John Proctor
(05:19):
character that's in Arthur Miller's 1953 the Crucible play.
So it's the and famously Arthur Miller took the 60 year old man
who was in Salem and was executed the actual figure, the
factual figure, and made him about 35 years old in The
(05:40):
Crucible. And potentially more
importantly, but also relevant, if nothing else, he took the
character of Abigail Williams based on an actual factual human
who was 11 years old in the reality and made her 16 years
old to sort of make it better. But still, it's, you know, it's
(06:01):
an affair between a 16 year old and a 35 year old.
And in Miller's play, by today'sstandards, I, I would say is
still problematic, just of a different degree than an 11 year
old and a 60 year old that we don't even have any real
evidence that they had an affair.
These are different characters. So when I say John Proctor is
the villain, or rather the titleof the play says that the
(06:24):
playwright, Kimberly Bellflower,is really responding to Arthur
Miller's play and the way that arguably, right, Arthur Miller's
play has become shorthand for how people encounter and or know
about the Salem witch trials. But there's so much
misinformation that's in that fictional account.
(06:45):
So yeah, I'm just so grateful for podcasts like y'all's
because you helped to bring someof that real information to the
public. In what ways do we find John
Proctor villainous? So let me just start by saying
spoiler alert, because the play unfolds in a way that's not
(07:06):
exactly a mystery, but it works best when there are surprises.
And the play is set in a high school classroom, so honors lit
junior year, and they're going to read The Crucible.
And so there's this very charismatic, very beloved male
teacher, Mr. Smith. And we have several students who
(07:30):
are 1617 years old in the classroom.
And what we discover is that we've got sort of a meta
theatrical thing happening, right?
We've got an opportunity within the classroom that's on stage to
stage parts of the Crucible as aproject, hypothetical project
(07:50):
for these students in this hypothetical classroom.
As they are doing it and researching the Crucible,
they're discovering some of the same things I just mentioned.
They're discovering the license that Arthur Miller took in doing
this fictional account, and especially the young feminist,
because there's also this feminist club that some of the
(08:10):
girls in the classroom have started and they basically are
starting to recognize that thesechanges that Arthur Miller made
might have been really helpful for him as he was going through
his own dissolvement of his marriage.
But now it's created a narrativethat is problematic, especially
(08:30):
as things in their small town, it's set in a small town, things
in their small town start to come to light because of the
attention that the Me Too movement has put on believing
women and trying to really unearth stories of sexual
assault and and sexual harassment that have been
(08:51):
occurring without necessarily people believing the women who
are telling about it. And so John Proctor's the
villain, because one of the things that we surmise from this
play, and and frankly, there's alot of research that supports
this possible interpretation, isthat the reason that these young
(09:12):
girls in Salem were having fits and that they seem to be acting
so Askew potentially was that they were having PTSD.
Not only because there was so much violence during that time,
which was obviously also true, but potentially because the men
in the town were not respecting any kind of notion of consent.
(09:36):
And so there could have been allsorts of sexual assaults that
was occurring and potentially this may have been a way that
the young women slash girls werejust trying to get attention to
themselves and trying to have a voice.
And so in that regard, if we if we see it that way, then
especially the fictional John Proctor becomes the villain here
(10:00):
because 16 is, you know, it's below the age of consent.
And so even if some 35 year old,and that's about the age by the
way of the the teacher in this classroom, a 35 year old wants
to have an affair with a 16 yearold, we would consider that
within the realm of me too. Thank you for that explanation
(10:26):
and for introducing us to the play.
How is your production differentthan the ways that this play has
been staged before? Oh, it's actually really
exciting. And I will say I talked to the
playwright when we were in earlyconversations about staging it
at KU. And I say that because I'm going
(10:46):
to tell you some kind of radicalthings that we're doing.
But we did talk to the playwright and she was very much
on board. And the most exciting thing is
that we're going to close our play on March 13th, and on March
20th it opens on Broadway. Not our play, but a professional
version of this play. So it's really exciting to have
(11:06):
this kind of freedom and to workon it on a college campus where
we can do things that a lot of professional theaters can't.
So that being said, the big change is that I have double
cast the play. So there are two teacher roles
and those roles are static. So those actors are the same in
both casts, but I basically doubled the number of actors to
(11:29):
play that the student characters.
And what that allows me to do isthat on the nights that are
focused on one cast, the other cast serves as other students in
the classroom. So it helps to fill out the
classroom and to create a more realistic classroom setting.
And it just creates the atmosphere better.
(11:49):
And then on the other nights, itgoes the opposite way.
So it's not a double cast in so far as there's nights off for
half of the cast or almost half of the cast.
They're still very much an ensemble.
But what that has created, whichis really exciting, is that with
two actors per student role, it's been remarkable how much
(12:10):
they've been able to talk to each other as actors about
choices that they're making for their characters.
And we have some pretty different choices, but they're
all grounded in the text and they're all making a lot of
sense for the characters. So it's really beautiful as a
director to see just the shape that it takes when it 1 cast is
(12:31):
sort of playing the so-called leads versus the other cast
playing the so-called leads. I can't imagine, like, how
exciting that must be for you, but also the students with the
timing of this, how incredibly special.
Yeah, we've talked about that. I mean, you know, I'm a
(12:52):
Dramaturk by trade, so of courseI'm going to ask these big
questions of why this play now? But I also have a drama Turk
working with me who has been talking to the student actors
about this. But it has been especially in
recent weeks, right? I mean, it's hard.
These students, many of them, I mean, I have, I would say a very
(13:13):
diverse cast and many of them are in minoritarian kinds of
positions, right? So whether a non binary I've got
a trans actor, I've got actors of color, and in all sorts of
different ways, these students have been feeling the effects of
recent decision making in our United States government that
(13:35):
have made them feel less than human, that have made them feel
like they are in grave danger. And so being able to come to
rehearsal and not only put that out of their mind for a moment,
but in a fictional world, get toexact a certain kind of revenge
(13:55):
has been really, really fulfilling.
Yeah, and that speaks to so much, to a lot of what the
plays, underlying undertones are, is about power dynamics and
how people relate to each other.Who's got the power?
Yeah, absolutely. It's, I would call it a feminist
(14:16):
dark comedy because there's justno question that this is a play
that is meant to reclaim the voices of women who have been
silenced. Whether we think of that from
the perspective of the young women, juniors in high school
who are female identifying, who find that they're not getting
(14:36):
the kind of respect or voice that they see the male
counterparts getting, Or if we're talking about the actual
characters in Miller's play. And more to the point, frankly,
and I know you all appreciate this, the actual people on whom
those characters are based. I just, I can't stop thinking
about, I mean, I, I might start crying because I think about the
(14:59):
11 year old Abigail Williams andwhat it must have taken for her
to just be in the position she was in.
And I don't know, how does a person survive?
So yeah, it's those power dynamics are very much an
undercurrent in this play. Would you like to tell us about
some of the characters in the play?
(15:21):
Would I? I think the ones I'm most drawn
to, I'm drawn to all of them. But I, I personally, I know for
a fact that if I were acting in college, I would have been cast
as Beth. This is not a surprise to
anybody who's read the play. Beth is basically a nerdy
student who's nervous and very into school.
(15:45):
And yeah, basically it's me to AT and much less worldly than
the other students in the class.And that was me growing up.
When I was in high school, I wanted to know more about things
outside of my small town, but I was also very focused on doing
really well in my high school. And that's the same as Beth.
And she just wants the teacher to approve of her.
(16:07):
And so they have a really tight relationship, which is, on the
one hand, really beautiful. But then there's another
character who is Shelby. And Shelby is not present on
stage when we first meet all theother characters, all the other
students, And we don't know why she's gone, but we start to
discover why when she comes back.
(16:27):
And she's a fascinating character and really beautifully
written by Kimberly Bellflower. It's clear the care that she has
taken with this character and with all of the characters, but
especially as we come to discover, Shelby has been
through more than anybody shouldhave to go through at the tender
age of 16, including the fact that she has had instances of
(16:53):
adult men taking advantage of her sexually.
And so she's incredibly resilient, but she's also really
wounded. And to see young actors really
work with a character that has this kind of three
dimensionality and respect for the survivorship of having lived
(17:14):
through that kind of experience.I mean, it is it's it's really a
gift, but it's also, it is a play that all of the emotions
happen. There's lots of laughter, but
then there's also probably tears.
In what ways does the Crucible intersect and relate with the
students experiences in their own small town?
(17:39):
So I teach at the University of Kansas, which is in Lawrence,
but most of our students come from rural small towns.
So early in the rehearsal process.
There's a reference in the play that that talks about it being a
one stop, 1 stoplight town, and I've never lived in a small town
(18:00):
like that, but I would say more than half of my student actors
have. So they were really sharing what
it's like and how true it is, the sort of saying that
everybody knows everybody's business.
They were explaining that that'sactually definitely a thing and
the notion of everybody going tothe same church or that you
would go to church in the 1st place, like all of that is
(18:21):
assumed. And part of how many of these
student actors actually grew up beyond that.
There's at least one and probably more, unfortunately,
actors who have experienced things that are similar to what
Shelby goes through and what we discover about Shelby.
I had actually two nights ago one of the actors said to me,
(18:44):
but always means a lot to me as an actor to do a show, she said.
But at this particular role in this particular play hits so
close to home that it feels likea kind of exorcism every time
I'm up there because, you know, the play ends in this dance that
is maybe my favorite part of thewhole thing.
(19:05):
It's what kind of drew me to it.I just, I love the song that
it's choreographed to. It's green light by Lorde.
But I also just think it's so powerful.
We frankly too often have plays that are just talking or plays
that are just musicals. But I like it when we start to
(19:27):
kind of have a little bit of each and having that dance kind
of gives it a little bit more ofa musical flavour.
It's not a musical, but a littlebit more like that.
But yeah, that dance feels like a certain kind of exorcism for
that particular actor. And I don't know for sure, but I
can sense it just based on the way that they respond, that
(19:50):
there are other actors who have a lot of familiarity with these
characters as well. Not only because these are deep
human experiences. The human experience element is
so evident. And then it's such a recent
piece. And then we're still in the
(20:11):
midst of so much of this. So I can't imagine that
describing it as an exorcism really answers.
I mean, it really speaks. I mean, that is a really good
way to express it I think. Yeah, Sarah, I, I see what
you're sort of struggling with. And I want to tell you, I feel
(20:32):
that, right. Like as a director, there are
moments where I get so emotionalbecause I'm seeing something
happening in front of me that I'm so frustrated.
That can't happen on a much larger level, right?
And I mean, that's beauty of art.
It's the beauty of theater and other kinds of art that we can
(20:53):
kind of create small worlds where we can dream about
different outcomes. But ideally we do that as
rehearsal for the real world. And right now it's just such AI
don't know about y'all, but I just feel so powerless.
And it is, it's quite a moment to be someone who writes about,
(21:14):
thinks about, researches witch hunts and witch witchcraft.
Because, you know, it's been at these moments of history where
we have seen both an upsurge in terms of people who are
practicing witchcraft and unfortunately, also a backlash
against it. And I I feel it coming.
(21:35):
This really makes me wonder too about the term witch hunt.
Does this production address that?
Yeah, it does. It addresses the part of witch
hunts that are historically accurate, sort of in so far as
the high school teacher in this fictional world does at least
(21:56):
talk about the people who were executed and that there were
false out accusations and at least there is acknowledgement
of that. But very quickly, I would say
most of the play really shows usin in stark relief what this
other use of witch hunt is, right.
(22:16):
Like as it has been used since Arthur Miller with the
allegorical kind of idea of trying to keep somebody
subversive quiet. And of course it's been misused
by people who are actually people who have a whole lot of
power, but they're getting nervous because somebody has
(22:37):
called them out on something andthey're going to use the phrase
witch hunt to distract us from what they actually did.
So it's a complicated phrase. It's a complicated allegory, but
hopefully y'all probably feel meon this.
It can be so darn offensive whenit is used in ways that are
(23:00):
meant to support the status quo and people who have historically
been very anti witch. So yeah, a play that not only
has the phrase in the text and deals with it sort of in the
most literal way, like on stage talking about it, but then
almost all of the action that unfolds after that is
(23:22):
resoundingly about the concept of a witch hunt as an allegory.
I definitely see how in an age when we have basically three
kinds of witch hunts or uses that I can see of the term witch
hunt. It's the literal accusation of
(23:45):
witchcraft against somebody and persecution because of that.
There is that allegorical witch hunt of real the vulnerable and
powerless being trampled on by the powerful just to maintain
the status quo, which he's spoken about.
And then there's these powerful people abusing the term and that
(24:07):
really frustrates me so much. But I can see in the play how
empowering it is because the characters do get to speak their
truth. Yes, and I think what the play
handles so delicately and yet insightfully is that question of
belief, right? So it's one thing to finally
(24:30):
speak one's truth, but it never feels resolved if there's mostly
disbelief happening with people,are there's so much doubt
created. And historically speaking, the
ways that we have marginalized women who have spoken out
against being mistreated by men or anybody has been to call them
(24:52):
crazy, has been to call them a slut, has been to, you know,
suggest that they are evil. And all of those allegations
come up and are even kind of tried on, if you will, by one of
the characters whose father. So we have a character named Ivy
in the play who is one of the 1617 year old girls in this
(25:16):
group. And she has a father who is she
comes from a wealthy family, a really well known prominent sort
of person in this small town. And her father gets accused of
some kind of sexual misconduct. And at one point she is
basically taking up this position of, well, we have to
have trials. And we, if we can believe the
(25:38):
people who have made these accusations, she says, and if
there are proven to be true, then we should really punish
those men. But if not, we should really
punish those women at least as much.
And that thinking, you know, I certainly understand, like if
there's a false allegation, that's I guess one thing.
But you know, what is the benefit of going out on a limb,
(26:02):
especially at the age 16 or 17, and trying to falsely accuse
somebody who is much more powerful than you?
Most of the time when people aretalking about this false
allegation kind of stuff, it is that third case that you're
talking about where it's actually a powerful person
trying to not to deflect. What is the accountability
(26:24):
coming for them? What strategies do the men you
had mentioned that one of the characters fathers gets accused.
What strategies do these men whoget accused used to silence the
accusers? Yeah, we see one character more
(26:45):
fully enacted who is been accused of something, and so we
see a little bit more with that character.
But in the case of Ivy's father,we hear it through Ivy's
recounting that, you know, it's a, it's a typical thing,
especially from someone who has wealth, that he's managed to
find this young woman another position in another nearby town.
(27:09):
And so basically he's gotten herout of his orbit so that he
doesn't have to worry about her allegations having too much
effect. But the but the primary way that
we hear about it is that mainly the character of the accuser
keeps getting called into question.
The character of the good name of which is of course, a central
(27:32):
theme in Arthur Miller's play. In terms of if you want to think
of John Proctor as a hero, then you have to really hold a
certain kind of value on the notion of not only the status
quo, but more importantly, the reputation, the good name that
hinges on, in the case of both The Crucible and John Proctor's,
(27:57):
the villain. It hinges on a world where
somehow we can blame a child forseducing an adult.
And that's for me, just a hard stop.
I just, it's very frustrating. And we're in a a time period
right now, arguably, where therehave been more and more sort of
(28:19):
pushes for traditional values, especially for women.
And certainly in terms of after Roe V.
Wade was overturned, we've seen more and more calls for why
aren't young women having more babies and why aren't young
women, you know, settling. And to me, that's a similar kind
of rhetoric, right? Because it's a rhetoric that
(28:41):
wants to establish before reallyadulthood, try to sort of
capture a young woman, slash girl into a marriage kind of
contract that keeps her from necessarily becoming a full
adult 1st. And we see that in the play from
(29:03):
the character Raelyn, because Raelyn has been dating the same
person in this play for seven years and she's only like 17
years old. So it's like from 10 to 17 she's
been dating, or maybe it's 9 to 16, but the point being, for
seven years, half of her life, she's been dating the same boy
slash young man. And that is not uncommon in
(29:26):
small towns, especially when thesort of central guiding moral
compass is an evangelical kind of Christian perspective.
It's that notion of, oh, yeah, well, you should just stay with
one person, and that way you cansave yourself to marriage, and
that way you can have just one partner your whole life.
(29:46):
But often these standards are different for men than they are
for women. And most of the time, they're
applied to much younger women than the men in question.
And I feel like that's where a lot of the truth of this play
kind of comes into full relief. And and one of the things that
Bellflower does so eloquently isshow us that arc with Ray Lynn,
(30:10):
because at first, so many questions that she's asking, she
almost ends every line. And I don't know, I don't know.
She keeps saying, I don't know, I don't know.
But I feel like a lot of young women can relate to that.
There's a stage of your life where you're like, who am I?
And you really can't necessarilymake that makes sense in your
(30:32):
hometown. You almost have to move out or
at least get older and learn more before you can truly start
to decide what it is you want tobe and what you want to do.
By the end of the play, there's this beautiful monologue that
Raelyn gives as part of her final project with Shelby.
And in that monologue, she basically has this vision of a
(30:56):
world where women can say their truth and they're believed, and
that's very powerful to see. What is that going to take?
Yeah, Well, I mean, I'm going toget, I'm going to get crunk on
(31:20):
you here, but I think we have toget rid of capitalism.
There, I said it. How about it?
I mean I really think that Sylvia Fededici, one of her
books is behind me so you're probably familiar.
Caliban and the Witch Women, Witches, witch hunts.
She writes about the early moments of the European witch
(31:44):
craze and talks about the need for enclosure that led to
capitalism. So the desire to own land in the
1st place, which is such an antiwitch concept.
What person owns land? That's so weird.
But of course capitalism relies on the notion of who is a
landowner and who is not a landowner.
(32:04):
And Federici really connects thebeginning of capitalism to the
singling out of women who resisted it as witches.
And to be clear, I want to acknowledge that.
I'm sure there are. I know that there are actual
witches out there, right? But in the history, this has
(32:27):
been part of the way that subversive individuals, not just
women, but anybody who pushed back against the power that was
trying to seize land, for example, that was a really
successful way of keeping them out of power and seizing their
land. And that's certainly a
compelling argument for what happened in Salem, right between
(32:50):
the village and the town. And I'm sure you're duly aware
of all of that history. But I think what it will take,
and that's why it's so scary because like, you know, that's a
big that's a big thing. But I think it takes a post
capitalist world. Like we have to think about who
are we and what do we really want?
Is money and capital and land the be all, end all?
(33:15):
Or might there just be somethingelse?
One of the things that you mentioned about tying young
ladies down before they've started their lives, I just
think that was really meaningful.
And one of the human advocacy things that are really getting
(33:36):
attention right now is making child marriage illegal
addressing. A lot of places are working hard
to address that. And then I'm so I'm thinking
about these lives that don't start, but and thinking about
the characters in your play, realizing things.
(33:59):
What if there was a sequel or some of these characters?
Is some Is any one of those girls going to come out of there
with their life change because of what's happening in that
classroom? I mean, I think Ray, that's part
of why I love Raylyn so much in terms of that arc.
(34:21):
I think Raylyn does change and that we actually, it's
beautiful. We get to see it in that last
scene. And so yes, I think after that,
Raylyn really embraces feminism and I think she goes on to
college and really embraces knowledge and who knows what she
(34:41):
becomes. Maybe she's a lawyer, maybe
she's a who knows? But whatever it is that she ends
up doing in the world, I bet she's trying to make the world a
better place for people like Shelby, her best friend.
And Shelby is irrevocably changed.
And she even has a moment where she's talking to Raelynn, And
Raelynn says something like, I know the answer's probably no,
(35:04):
but are you OK? And Shelby answers by saying,
yeah, no, I'm definitely not OK,and I won't be for a long time.
But she at least recognizes thatmaybe with counseling and maybe
with certain steps that she can take to regain her sense of
self, that there might be a different path forward.
(35:26):
And to me that that that dance and that performance that ends
the play because, again, they'rein this high school classroom
that's been assigned to read theplay and to do an interpretive
project. And maybe it's me as a teacher
myself thinking, oh, isn't it great that maybe in a classroom
setting, especially one that deals with drama or theatre,
(35:47):
that maybe by enacting these roles, there could be a certain
kind of release or realization that occurs.
And I really hope that's true. I feel like it is true.
I've seen it happen in my students.
And I feel like in that classroom, what what else is
happening is that Mason, who's one of the boy characters, and
(36:08):
at first we see him as someone who's just like failing all of
his classes, doesn't really care.
He's just there some kind of like class clown.
By the end of it, he's saying things like, I really like smart
girls and he's starting to pick up on some of the things from
the feminism club. And I think, you know, she has
Mason stand up and start doing some of the dance at the end.
(36:31):
He's the only boy who does that or young man.
And I feel like he changes as well because of this club,
because of what he has seen, because of how he starts to
recognize that his best friend Lee is maybe not such a good guy
after all. So, yeah, I really do think
(36:52):
believe that art has the abilityto transform, especially when it
is something that's like a brokenness that people have.
It has that, you know, catharsisor exorcism possibility.
And and frankly, I think it's a little bit like witchcraft, like
(37:12):
there's a little magic there. I I do think that when you put
on theater, I mean, historicallythis is true in terms of like
the ancient Greeks, right? Like they did theater as a form
of worship for Dionysus, right? And before that, even I, I think
that even today, even in 2025, when we put on theater, there's
at least a little bit of ritual and certainly magic that can
(37:36):
occur both on stage and in the audience.
And I don't know if you've ever felt that way, but sometimes
when you're watching a play, like you just feel like all of
your goosebumps happen and you just sort of, you just feel
different sometimes. I think it's so important.
You pointed out that transformative power the play
(37:56):
has on the audience, as well as the characters within it and the
cast and crew. That's putting it on everybody
who experiences this play. I think there's that opportunity
for a transformation. Yeah, I hope so.
And you know, it's funny, I justgot back from speaking at a
(38:17):
university women's club, which has university women in it, but
also a lot of emeriti professors.
So, you know, of a certain age, right?
And so their interest in this play was remarkable.
And I think what a cool audience, if we can have
audiences that are not just sortof of the same generation, the
(38:39):
Gen. Z, where this play is kind of in
many ways written in the language of and for Gen.
Z folk. But I also think it has the
potential to be very transformative for older women.
And I'm hoping to see, you know,people of all ages and certainly
men in the audiences well, because it it has the potential
(39:00):
to really start some important conversations.
How do people attend one of yourproduct one of your nights?
Or I'm assuming it's at night, but I guess it could be any
time. Yeah, we have one matinee, but
yeah, everything else is at night.
So the play runs the March 7th through the 13th.
So it's six performances only, but they can go to kutheatre.com
(39:23):
and they'll see John Proctor's villain as one of the
performances that's listed there.
We are also working to make someof the dress rehearsals
available because with the double cast, a lot of people
have expressed interest in trying to see two nights, one of
each cast, which is great, but it's, you know, kind of a
(39:44):
limited audience. So we're trying to sort of open
it up, make sure that as many people that want to see it can
see it. So yeah, it's going to be really
special to share this with the audiences.
Yeah, I'm really excited for youand for the audiences.
It sounds like, you know, this is a unique production of the
(40:04):
play. And also the timing is so
thrilling. That's right before the Broadway
play starring Sadie Sink begins.So.
I mean, yeah, that has been really fun.
And of course, the actors are both thrilled and terrified that
they get to kind of build up to this Broadway thing.
(40:27):
In fact, one of them has alreadygotten a ticket for a preview
night in New York. And they were telling me they
were like, I don't even know howI'm getting there, but somehow I
will get there. That's great.
Yeah, it's all. Exciting.
Is there any other anything elseabout this experience or the
(40:48):
story that you want to be sure to touch on?
Yeah, I, I don't and this will be come as a surprise.
So I'll just give you all a heads up because I forgot to
mention this, but this is something that might be at least
useful to share on the 12th through the 13th of March, or
maybe it's the 11th through the 12th.
But certainly on the 12th, we have a special guest who's
coming in from Pennsylvania. She's a colleague in the field.
(41:11):
So she is also a theater historian, a drama Turk.
But her work, her name is Bess Rowan.
And her work is she's currently writing a book about Mean Girls
and depictions of also of teenage rage on stage.
And there've been a lot of really cool plays that have come
out in recent years and also on screens where we get a chance to
(41:33):
kind of see how that teenage stage of coming into womanhood
can really ignite some interesting kinds of
relationships. And so she's coming to give a
pre show talk on the 12th and she'll be in town to see one
night of what we call the town cast and one night of what we're
(41:57):
calling the village cast. Oh.
Cool me. So.
I see what you did there. Thank you.
I was like, I don't think I evenhave to explain this to them,
no. That's fun.
That's fun. Yeah, yeah.
So that's going to be a really neat thing anytime we have
people come in to do pre show talks, I think it really just
(42:18):
sort of heightens the engagementthat are especially university
audience can have with the the piece.
But in this case Bess is just I mean such a lovely human.
I'm I'm very excited for her to have a chance to interact with
our students so. This is really like one of those
once in a lifetime moments for this group.
(42:42):
Yeah, well, and I can't wait to write about it because I have
been talking to my assistant director and maybe there's just
a million people out there doingdouble casts and we've never
heard of it. But it's a fairly unusual thing
to do. And just every night having
rehearsal with, it's kind of weird having two casts.
And so you'll block the scene with one cast, and then it's
(43:03):
like, OK, let's get the townies up here.
OK, let's, let's work with the village people.
It is a very different way of directing.
I can't put it into words yet. I'm still sort of noodling on
it. But I definitely want to write
about it. I feel like there's something
there to say. Yeah.
So great. Thank you so much for this
conversation. Mary Bingham has a new minute
(43:25):
with Mary. Jane referred to some of the
accusers in 1692 as experiencingwhat is known today as PTSD.
Based on a statement given by Samuel Sibley on March 25th,
16921 could surmise this could have been true from Mary Warren,
(43:46):
John Proctor's 20 year old servant.
In a conversation with Sibley, Proctor said he was going to
fetch his Jade home and beat her.
Proctor also revealed that he previously threatened to beat
Mary if she had fits and kept her close to her wheel, meaning
probably her spinning wheel, andthat would have kept her
(44:09):
occupied. Living under the constant threat
of beatings would have been traumatic enough for Mary.
Also, both of her parents were already deceased, leaving her
without a grounded support system and little chance of
becoming a formidable suitor forsomeone, leaving her with almost
no chance to better her social status.
(44:32):
Thank you, Mary. And now Sarah has End witch
hunts news. Historical injustices mirror
ongoing witchcraft accusation, persecution worldwide.
Our mission to end witch hunts rightly connects colonial
American victims to those suffering from witchcraft
accusations today. By breaking the silence around
these cases, we forge a path toward justice for all victims.
(44:56):
AST and PRESENT, our campaign for colonial witch trial
exonerations continues to gain momentum following Connecticut's
landmark 2023 passage of HJ 34A resolution concerning certain
witchcraft convictions in colonial Connecticut.
This success is now followed by similar legislative efforts
(45:17):
across two former colonies, withtwo critical initiatives
currently needing public supportand community advocacy.
Massachusetts HD 3054, an act exonerating certain individuals
accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, seeks
historic justice for eight pre Salem victims, including five
(45:38):
who were executed in Boston. Maryland's HJ 2, exonerating
those accused, tried or convicted of witchcraft in the
province of Maryland prior to the American Revolution, aims to
address their colonial era witchtrial convictions.
Both bills are currently in committee and will require
community advocacy of public testimony for advancement.
(46:00):
These victims can no longer speak to their own innocence.
We can do that, You can do that.These efforts build on decades
of progress, from the initial Massachusetts 1957 Act to the
recent Elizabeth Johnson Junior exoneration in 2022 and the 2023
passage of absolution in Connecticut.
(46:21):
However, many colonial witch trial victims remain without
recognition or justice. The current initiatives
acknowledge that witch hunts extended beyond Salem, affecting
innocent men, women, and children across multiple
colonies. Your voice is crucial.
There are two important petitions for you to sign now.
Please sign to support.massachusetts@change.org/witchtrials
(46:47):
and also please sign to support.maryland@change.org/MD.
Witch Trials. Whether you're a descendant or
concerned citizen, you can support these bills by emailing
words of support to the legislators, voting, submitting
written testimony of support, orspeaking in support at the
approaching committee hearings. Connecticut's successful
(47:09):
testimonies provided excellent template for effective advocacy.
This work connects directly to our mission of ending witch
hunts globally, recognizing thathistorical injustices mirror
ongoing persecution. Join us in breaking the silence
and securing long overdue justice for these victims.
For guidance on submitting testimony or getting involved,
(47:31):
visit our website or reference Connecticut's public testimony
records from HJ 34. Links are in the show notes.
Thank you, Sarah. You're welcome.
And thank you for joining us on Witch Hunt.
You should check out our robust catalog of expert discussions.
Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
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