Something extremely exciting is afoot here in Steel City – the Arthur Miller behemoth The Crucible has opened at its namesake Crucible Theatre and is promising to bewitch audiences for the next three weeks. Or should that be ‘dewitch’ audiences? For this juggernaut of the Miller cannon, directed here by Anthony Lau and designed by Georgia Lowe, is set during the Salem witch trials of 1692-93. A group of young women are discovered dancing naked and chanting spells in the depths of the forest and quickly find themselves accused of witchcraft by the Puritanical and somewhat hysterical locals. Execution awaits the accused unless they can make their fellow townsfolk see sense. Alarmingly, Miller based all these characters on real life historical people and events, although there is some debate about how accurate his details are. Either way, it is such a good concept for a play – it really is no wonder that it still piques so much interest all these years after it first took to the Broadway stage in 1953. Perhaps this is all to do with the human fascination with the occult, the dark side of our nature. Or perhaps it is because there are so many modern-day parallels about dangerous groupthink, whereby innocent yet eccentric folk are persecuted by a closed minded and barbaric mob mentality. The themes still resonate.
This Sheffield Theatres Production is cleverly staged – Lowe’s set is fiendishly simple. There are nods to the Puritanical Salem setting. The bleak colourlessness of the place seeps in from every angle such that the atmosphere and tone of the piece screams even before any words are uttered. There is a marvellous homage to the fact that we are sitting in the Crucible Theatre and watching The Crucible play – a ‘light box’ sign reading ‘Crucible’ is writ large over the action. It flickers and sparkles at key moments and is almost a character in its own right. There are microphones and chairs that look to have been borrowed from a drab church hall. It all feels appropriately parochial.
When we meet each of the characters, their story is more haunting because of this setting. Rose Shalloo is completely superb as the vengeful antagonist Abigail Williams. Abigail is a Jezebel of a character, and her main target is poor Elizabeth Proctor (Anoushka Lucas), her former employer, who sacked her after she discovered that Abigail was having an affair with her husband John (Simon Manyonda). This central human tragedy forms so much of the dynamic of the piece and drives most of what follows.
Sargon Yelda gives us a terrifyingly egotistical Reverend Parris, a man who is only interested in keeping his job through all this madness. He seems far less concerned about his clearly unwell daughter Betty (played with a spookily zombie like quality by Honor Kneafsey). Equally despicable is Deputy Governor Danforth (Ian Drysdale) who is a self-serving coward only out for his own reputation. His blind obedience to the law is terrifying.
Manyonda as tragi-hero farmer John is completely commanding – his relationship with Shalloo’s Abigail feels dangerously illicit from the off and yet as time wears on the seediness recedes allowing us to see his kinder, nobler side. This is a magnificent performance. The scenes he shares with Lucas’ Elizabeth are full of tenderness, especially when the issue of his infidelity with Abigail is broached.
The accusations come thick and fast throughout the four (yes, four) acts, and some of them are quite outlandish. Ann Putman (Laura Pyper) is just looking for a scapegoat to take the blame for the death of her children. Pyper conveys this painful confusion perfectly. The one voice crying in the wilderness who appears to see the madness of it all is Mary Warren (Millicent Wong) but even her loyalties are balanced on a knife edge. One other character sees the truth albeit too late and that is the supposed witchcraft expert Reverend Hale (Sid Sagar) – this is a passionate performance and Sagar is magnificent in the way he portrays the devastating journey of a man who realises that he has put his own need to feel needed and knowledgeable before the actual truth of the situation.
This production is beautifully crafted and perfectly played. There are a couple of curious leitmotifs that recur throughout – namely the drinking of milk and the use of microphones on stands. It seems to me that the milk – the most ancient symbol of childhood nourishment (and therefore innocence) demands that we consider who is truly innocent and what is feeding each character’s motives. The microphones for their part enable amplification of certain key ideas and emphasise the delineation between the public and the private declarations – especially important in the final act. These two devices could feel trite and distracting, but I rather like them and feel that they achieve the goal of making us as an audience think outside the text. The lighting by Jess Bernberg enhances the storytelling completely, giving texture and suggesting mood in each scene. The raising of the house lights at key moments is especially immersive. I really enjoy the soundscape by Giles Thomas which communicates the growing hysteria to perfection without being overbearing or intrusive.
If you want an evening of excellent theatre, a tale of tyranny still so apt for our time, a story told by an electrifyingly good cast who really know what they are doing, then head over to The Crucible in Sheffield. You’ll not find better.
The Crucible is at The Crucible until Saturday 30th March 2024.
Photos: Manuel Harlan
