The Salem Witches

The Salem Witches
Drama

Directors: Katrin Pärn (guest), Janek Savolainen (Rahvusteater Vanemuine)
Author: Arthur Miller
Set designer and musical designer: Katrin Pärn (guest), Janek Savolainen (Rahvusteater Vanemuine)
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Translator: Virve Aruoja
Costume designer: Triinu Pungits (guest)
Lighting designer: Margus Vaigur

On stage: Sten Karpov, Liis Karpov, Saara Nüganen, Märt Avandi (guest), Fatme Helge Leevald, Kristelle Kohv (guest), Miira Vara (guest), Ireen Kennik, Ago Anderson, Kadri Rämmeld, Nikool Abel (guest), Marta-Liisa Õun (guest), Hetlin Kiisler (guest), Kerlin Kiveste (guest), Carmen Mikiver, Meelis Rämmeld, Erik Richard Salumäe (guest), Enn Keerd, Andrus Vaarik, Karl-Andreas Kalmet, Ando Loosaar

Salem, a small town in Massachusetts, USA, is small, but the passions, injustice and anguish here are anything but. Nor are the pride and recklessness of its people in defending their wounded honour. What seems at first a simple situation grows, through blind mass hysteria, into an avalanche that proves impossible to stop. What unfolds calls into question and turns upside down our ideas of justice and law, power, loyalty, honesty, love and guilt. Homes are emptied of people, hope grows scarce, and fear lurks everywhere: that someone will point a finger at you next, bringing your life to an end. Yet the sun still rises and shines equally on everyone...

The Crucible is a drama written in 1953 by American playwright Arthur Miller (1915–2005), an allegory and critique of “witch hunts” in different periods. The witch trials in Salem in the 1690s, on which the play is based, were indeed as hopeless and frightening as they appear in the play. Yet mass hysteria and the condemnation and labelling of people with different views or ways of life have never disappeared from human society.