She sees him stand up, and before she can do anything, Nell has practically leaped up out of her seat, placing herself squarely in between him and her friends. She watches as Nell stares him dead in the eyes before she begins dancing too. It’s not long before Shelby and Raelynn pull Nell into their orbit, and then all three of them are jumping to the beat.
“Alright, ladies!” Carter shouts, and Bailey has never seen that look in his eyes before. One part fury, one part disbelief, one part… uncertainty?
Bailey’s so fixated on Carter that she only catches a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye and realizes that Mason has stood up too, doing an awkward little fist pumping motion at his desk.
They’re so brave, she thinks. Certainly braver than she was at their age. Yes, she was a good girl. Kept her head down, did her homework, kissed enough boys to prove she wasn’t a prude but not too many that people started calling her a slut.
Lorde sings, “I wish I could get my things and just let go,” and Carter is moving again, eyes laser focused on the girls and more specifically on Shelby.
Bailey jumps up, barely aware that she’s doing so, and in four strides has placed herself in the way as well. She forces herself to stare into those dark eyes, well aware of how fast her heart is beating. He’s so much taller than her. Stronger, too. She feels herself standing up straighter, bracing herself. All he does is glare at her before spinning around and storming back to his desk in the corner. Bailey exhales and tries to relax her shoulders.
She turns slightly so she can watch the girls, making sure Carter stays in her line of sight. As she does so, she catches Beth’s eyes, just for a moment. Stand up, Bailey thinks. Join your friends. You don’t need to be loyal to this man any longer. They need you. They want you. They love you.
Of course, she doesn’t say any of this. It has to be Beth’s choice or else it won’t mean anything. So she just gives Beth a small nod that she hopes is encouraging before looking back to Shelby, Raelynn, and Nell who are taking up so much space in the middle of the room. She smiles.
John Proctor is the Villain is giving me brain worms, so have some spotlight analysis from your friendly neighborhood lighting designer.
Disclaimer: I am doing this analysis based off a bootleg. A very high quality bootleg, but a bootleg all the same. Lighting specifically is very hard to convey over camera (I am at war with my local theater's photographer, stop white balancing all the color out of my designs!), so I may miss some of the nuances. However, even with the video there is some really cool stuff going on I want to talk about.
Scene 1 -> 2 - No spotlight. This is one of two moments in the show where we do not use a spotlight in our transition. What we have instead is a high intensity light shining through the classroom door which is backlighting Miss Gallagher. Backlighting like this is normally done for the villain, it casts their face into shadow well illuminating their form to create an ominous presence. Which makes a sort of sense given Miss Gallagher is about to tell our girls that their request for a feminist club has been denied, she is the first obstacle they need to overcome. However, she also seems awkward in the light rather than confident or ominous. She's fidgeting with her hair and shirt. readying herself for the confrontation she's about to have, and takes a deep breath before moving forward. In a sense she's forcing herself into a role she doesn't truly inhabit. Additionally we don't see her from the front the way we do the rest of the spotlights, we are not allowed in to her inner thoughts because at this point in the show she is still putting up a wall. Still pretending not to see the small signs in favor of maintaining the image of Carter she's always had.
Scene 2 -> 3 and 3 -> 4 - Both of these spotlights focus on Raelynn, but there are major difference between them. The first is after her little speech about what happened with Shelby. The spot itself is white, something you usually don't do with traditional front light as it can wash out your actor, but in this case makes sense to highlight the distress Raelynn feels over what happened. However, it's not pure white. It seems to have a very, very, slight pink tint to it, making it softer then most of the spotlights in the show are. The down lights around the stage have also been left on with a pinkish amber tint to them helping to soften the scene as a whole. Raelynn herself shifts in the spotlight, turning towards where the other girls are easily and leaving the room with them without a second thought.
The spot at the end of scene 3 is completely different. The tint is blue now, making it harsher and more intense. The down lights around her are off, creating a feeling of emptiness and isolation. As for Raelynn herself, she looks directly at the audience the entire time, seemingly unable to look away, even as Lee leaves and her friends enter. So much so that she is still standing in the exact same spot when the next scene starts, not breaking the spotlight like most of the characters do during the scene change.
What's the difference? At the end of scene 2, her friends are there. They are able to pull her out of her head and distract her, make the fight with Shelby something she doesn't have to dwell on or be mad about alone. Plus the fight with Shelby happened months ago, it still hurts, but it's easier to ignore, especially when Shelby herself is not there. At the end of scene 3 though, she's alone. There's nothing to distract her from what Lee said or did, all she can do is think about it.
Scene 4 -> 5 - Mason is an interesting choice for our spotlight character, and cards on the table when I initially made this post I brushed it off as just to keep up the pattern, but the more I thought about it the more I wasn't satisfied with that answer. The light on him is fairly standard, edging towards the cool side, but the down lights are different then we see in the other changes. They're left on across the full stage and also seem to be fairly close to pure white. I think what we're doing is highlighting the idea that just being in the room is going to cause a shift in Mason. He can pretend to sleep through discussions, but he's still there, he's still hearing everything they're talking about and we see by the end of the play that he has started to absorb it (his attempt to stand up for Beth, showing his support during the dance). He rushes out of the spotlight once he wakes up, as if catching himself starting to care before he's fully ready to admit that he does, but the seeds have been planted.
Scene 5 -> 6 - Shelby gets the focus this time. The spot is very reminiscent of the spot that hits Raelynn at the end of scene 3, a harsh white light with a blue tint to it, most of the stage dark around her. However, the down light directly above Shelby is on creating a fuzzy circle on the ground below her. My initial instinct was that this should feel claustrophobic, but the light has an amber tint to it making it warmer then the rest of the stage. It does isolate her, but it's also creates an island of sorts, an area of safety in the dark room. So it's telling that Shelby willingly walks out of it before the end of the scene change, choosing to join the rest of the class rather then stay on her island.
Additionally though, the light draws attention. The spot lights always do, that's their purpose, but the down light emphasizes that element. Staying in Atlanta gave her space, it gave her time to heal and try and move on, but it also gave the school's rumor mill time to run rampant well she was away. It made what would have been standard gossip into a mystery. Shelby also seems to be aware of the spotlight in a way the other characters aren't, fully looking up at it as she turns to join the class. She knows she's being watched.
Scene 6 -> 7 - This might be my favorite spotlight in the whole show. It's so good.
We actually break our pattern a little at first, as when the scene change starts none of the characters are lit up. The stage simply gets dimmer as the music plays and everyone starts moving. It's not until about ten seconds later that it happens.
Ivy is crossing towards the couch to join her friends when the lights suddenly shift. A blue tint spotlight snaps on, catching her as she walks and forcing her to stop as all other lights disappear. She wants so desperately for everything to be normal, to go about the day like nothing's wrong and for no one to be talking about her. No matter what she does though, she can't out run what's happened. She can say over and over that her dad is a good person, that he's her dad and she believes him, but the 'what if' is always in the back of her head now, and things can't go back to the way they were. It's only so long before that realization catches up to her.
Scene 7 -> 8 - Our spot light is on Beth this time, and we're making some interesting choices. The spot itself seems softer than any of the others we've seen. Partly this is because she's wearing a pink sweater, but if you look at her skin there is a pink tint there as well. However, unlike Raelynn after scene 2, the down lights around Beth are off, she's alone in her spotlight. The pink tint initially felt odd to me, but I think it's because the scene ended with an explosive show of emotion from Beth rather than an attempt to hold her feelings in or conceal them. Which it's also telling than that Beth seems almost embarrassed in her spotlight, looking down at her paper, and rushing out of it as soon as she can, as if apologizing for the outburst even without the voice to do so.
Scene 8 -> 9 - This one is almost exactly the same as Scene 2 to 3, which makes sense. Raelynn has her friend back, and there is a freedom and joy in that, so she has the warmer spot with warm down lights.
Scene 9 -> 10 - This is an extremely close follow up for favorite spotlight. It's the one that made me start paying attention to them. It's also the most obvious one, but whatever, it's still so smart I don't care if it's on the nose.
Shelby is our spotlit character again, but it's a completely different then anything else we see. The stage is dark around her, the only light on is her spotlight, which is a much harsher white then the last few have been. What's important here though, is the shape. Theatrical lights have the ability to be focused allowing the designer to decide how sharp they want the light's spill to be on the floor. Most of the time the designer will leave the lights with a soft focus, as a major goal of lighting design is to hide the light from the audience. Unless you're doing something like, say, Chicago, seeing pools of light on the ground can break the immersion of the play. Here though, the designer has opted for a sharp focus, you can tell based on how clean the lines look, which draws attention to the light and it's shape, which is what's really important here. The light has been shuttered in to create a square shape, something that doesn't happen anywhere else in the show.
The meaning is obvious, right? I don't have to spell it out for you. I'm going to though, because I'm getting the chance to geek about theater lighting, something I so rarely get to do on here.
Shelby is boxed in. She's been trying to go back to normal, to act like nothing is wrong, but the longer she's there the harder it is. In theory she should only have to be around Mr. Smith during his class, but he finds ways to slip in outside of that time too, like offering to let them work in his classroom and inserting himself into their conversations. I also don't think it's a mistake that this happens right after the scene where Shelby sees the ways Mr. Smith acts with Beth, the small moments of praise he gives her or that they were alone together before she entered. How many times did he say something similar to Shelby or were the two of them alone together? Does she see the signs starting all over again but with a different girl? It also comes directly after Mr. Smith assumes Beth is the one who must have been reading Joan Didion, not Shelby. In the moment she brushes it off, but we've seen throughout the play with how quick she is to reassure everyone that she has read The Crucible that this is an insecurity for her, that she knows everyone thinks she's stupid. All of these pieces stack on top of each other, creating a box she can't escape and everyone seems to be able to so clearly see.
Finally (because I've been talking about this spotlight moment for way to long), it's telling that this time Shelby doesn't move from her spot. It looks like she wants to pull away but can't, her attention stays fixed on the audience the whole time as the rest of the cast enters around her, because no matter what she does she can't escape this. He's always there and the cycle is always continuing and even if she did say anything why would anyone believe her when they think she's stupid and slightly crazy? This is the only point in the show where a character does not end the scene change on their next mark, Shelby has to scramble to get to her desk once the lights come up. Almost as if it's starting to prevent her from being able to move forward the way everyone else can.
Scene 10 -> 11 - I can tell something is happening here, but the boot I have blacks out almost as soon as the scene does, so I'm not sure on the details for this one. It looks like some sort of down light near Shelby in a cool/white color, but I don't feel comfortable trying to analyze it with how little I have.
Scene 11 -> 12 - Beth gets her second spotlight moment here and following our theme it has a blue tint this time, reflecting the way she just closed herself in and shut down after feeling like she failed to properly lead the lesson. There's an extra detail this time though. Miss Gallagher is also illuminated by the spotlight, as if sharing the moment. It's possible this is just a fluke because of how close she's standing to Beth, but I'm choosing to assume it's intentional for the sake of this analysis.
By sharing the spotlight we create a connection between Beth and Miss Gallagher. The rest of the down lights are off, imitating the feeling of isolation from other transitions, but this time Beth doesn't have to face it by herself. There is someone else there who understands, offering her support and reassuring her she doesn't have to be ashamed or scared. Miss Gallagher leaves the light first, but even after she does Beth doesn't seem nervous or rushed. She gathers her things and leaves the light at her own pace as opposed to the frantic way she did from scene 7 to 8, comforted in knowing she isn't alone.
Scene 12 -> 13 - Going to be real gang, the white balance does something weird in the boot I'm watching, so if I'm off on this one feel free to call me on it.
From what I can see we have a warm tinted spotlight on Nell, and there is definitely a down light over her, which I believe is also warm tinted, both of which would fit with our pattern given Nell has just had her flirty scene with Mason. There is a small detail I like though. Unlike the earlier happy ending scenes with Raelynn, the rest of the stage around Nell is dark. It reminds me of the spot on Shelby between scenes 5 and 6, the island of safety she was given. This is a good moment, but it's just that, a moment. Nell is excited, an excitement she happily shares with the audience, but this is a small island of good in the sea of everything happening around them, one which Nell can not stay on forever.
Scene 13 -> 14 - The script describes Lee as "deeply insecure and without the tools to deal with it. he's always been good at getting what he wants" and I think that's important to understanding what's happening here. He has finally been told to his face that there are no second chance, no charming his way into forgiveness, it's done. Raelynn will not take him back. For possibly the first time in his life he is being told he can not have what he wants and there is zero chance of him ever getting it. So when the spotlight snaps on it's got a cool tint and is isolated on stage, giving him a moment to reflect...
...and Lee immediately turns and wanders out of it without seeming to do any of the introspection our other spotlight characters have done. It's genuinely so good. I love it.
Scene 14 -> 15 - There is no spotlight used here. Instead, we return to our transition from the begining, with the intense light streaming through the classroom door as Mr. Smith enters the scene. There are subtle differences to it though. Where as the first transition used backlight, this light comes from Stage Right fully illuminating his face. Where as Miss Gallagher seemed awkward and unsure in her light, Mr. Smith strides in, confident and unbothered as if reclaiming his control. He is our villain, but he's not hiding or putting up a front. He's gotten away with it and he's so confident that he will continue to do so that he willingly shows us who he is, not relying on shadows to sell his power, entering the classroom without a second thought.
Scene 15 -> 16 - The final spotlight of the show goes to Beth. At first it seems like our standard spotlight pattern, a cool blue spot on our character who's introspecting. This time though, when Beth moves to leave the light the way she did before, it follows her. There's a slight lag to it (this is most likely either operator error or if they're using automatic spots which can sometimes have delay), but it still travels downstage with her, catching her again. Beth isn't fully trapped by it the way Shelby or Ivy were, she can still move around and she does manage to fully break free before the end of the scene change, but it also doesn't let her go as easily as it used to. The meaning is, I think, two fold.
Firstly Mr. Smith is laying it on thick in scene 15, his most charming and manipulative, and in doing so he's building the box around Beth that could someday trap her the way it did Shelby. Every layer he adds makes it a little harder to break free of his influence.
However, Beth is also starting to see the pieces. She can't brush it all off and blindly trust him the way she could before, the doubt follows her. She's still trying to ignore it, to not think to deeply about what's going on, which is why she's able to walk out of the spotlight on her second attempt, but it's not as easy anymore. Just like Ivy from scene 6 to 7, she can't fully go back to normal. In this case though, that's a good thing. Because Shelby told her story, Beth knows what to be on the look out for and is starting to truly reflect on her own relationship with Mr. Smith, and that's what allows her to stand up at the end. Even if she's not ready to fully join the dance, she has the tools she needs to one day get there.
