The Three Gibbet Crossroads


The Three Gibbet Crossroads is a riddle. It makes the reader guess the man’s crime, which is supposedly worse than the two others- worse than a “Murder” or a “Rapist. Katurian believes that the riddle is unsolvable, and even says that “There is nothing worse”. However in Tupolski’s view the man’s crime is that of murdering children, and is therefore another link into the mounting case building against Katurian.

The story is a long section of text, and could be confusing for the audience, so it was important to mark out spaces that could be used to suggest certain characters or places. Therefore we had a specific area on stage to show the other two iron gibbets and also the entrance of the nuns.

Furthermore, in our version of the play, Katurian should be representative of the man with the unknown crime.  This is Tupolski’s way of emphasising his belief that killing children is the worst of crimes and that Katurian is guilty of exactly that. This explains the italics on “was guilty” as the detective is trying to get Katurian to confess.

We also chose to have Tupolski place himself as the highwayman. I think this character in particular reflects the policeman’s view of himself and his role in society. Tupolski does not see himself as a good man- he murders and orders the torture of people for a living and for me, he is aware of the part that he plays. Similar to the highwayman, he does not believe that he is good but that he does good things. He sees himself as a man of importance, who takes on the challenge of the jobs that that need doing, however awful they may be. And like the Highwayman, he will get no thanks for killing the Guilty, but the world will still be a better place without those like Katurian or the “man” in it.

So when the Highwayman smiles, Tupolski smiles as well. He copies the highwayman’s actions all the way to pulling out the gun, which he points carefully at Katurian’s chest. This is terrifying for Katurian because, as the writer, he knows that the next step in the story is for the highwayman to shoot the prisoner. In this moment, strange parallels form between Katurian and the “man”. If the writer dies now, then he will never know what it is he stands accused for, and neither will he know what is fate will be if there exists a life after death. In some ways, the point of this story is to show how fear of the unknown is perhaps greater than living with a terrible crime. Katurian cannot fight what he does not understand, and therefore there would be no chance of him ever being free. 

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