A wide-spread persecution of alleged witches and witchcraft had been experienced in Europe since the Middle Ages. Once the Puritans formed their rudimentary towns and heavily religious societies in New England, principally Massachusetts, the fear of devil worshippers and the abandonment of moral structure and the strictures of the Bible meant all hell was let loose. The iron-fisted authorities in the seventeen century held on firmly to the text of Exodus 2:18 “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” If someone was accused of witchcraft ( mainly women and girls but also men) it was nigh on impossible to prove they were not. So hangs the plot in Arthur Miller’s drama The Crucible, which was written and first performed in 1953 at the heart of the McCarthy anti-Communist campaign in the USA.
The play cleverly explores obvious parallels of unsupported accusations and townsfolk who are encouraged to denounce their friends and acquaintances causing a spiral of fear and suspicion. In the seventeen century native American Indians, who were considered uncivilized heathens and lived in the wild, were also a strong fear factor amongst the Puritan communities. So as we learn at the opening of the play, several teenage girls are accused of dancing like naked heathens in the woods at night and consorting with the devil. Reverend Parris has seen them and Abigail Williams is accused of conjuring spirits with Tituba in an attempt to harm Elizabeth Proctor. Parris’s daughter Betty appears to be in a deep coma from being involved in the ‘witchcraft’. No-one can wake her. The daughter of the Putnam family is similarly affected. All the adults are uncomfortably sure that witchcraft is the cause. Abigail Williams has the added problem that she has been having an affair with Elizabeth Proctor’s husband, John. Abject fear is the prevalent emotion that drives this story forward in Salem. Arthur Miller based some of his characters on real people of those dark times in his four act play.
The language of the play is deliberately written in an archaic way and this helps to anchor the theatrical work to particular and peculiar times and places. Arthur Miller wrote his text very precisely and many lines stand out as clear warnings or groups of words that define a character in a single sentence. Namely; Abigail Williams says: … Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it…
In this gripping production, the raised circular set design by Guy Evans, lends itself to rapid changes of scenes. Technical and acting rapidity is of the essence in The Crucible to keep the drama tight and the circle could be seen to represent ethical constraints and moral enclosure. There are twenty in the cast which is possible why we see so few professional productions are touring it these days. Then who needs professional productions when amateur ones like this are so well performed? Music and song are also included in this Lace Market Theatre production.
Off those twenty there is not a weak link and Matthew Huntbach’s fine direction gives the piece clarity and a visceral quality throughout the four act play. Of the main principals, David Field (John Proctor), Kareena Sims (Elizabeth Proctor) and Francesca Short (Abigail Wiliams), there is much to admire. Field and Sims are superb in creating highly believable marital tensions underpinned with their survivalist natures as they fight against their unusual and deadly predicaments. Field brings out the gritty and torn dramas of Proctor’s forthright nature, his latter courage and his descent. Sims offers up an open, devout, blameless, honest and ultimately dignified Elizabeth Proctor. Her final scenes with her shackled and tortured husband are truly heart-breaking. Short’s well- realised acts of spite, bullying and betrayal in Abigail Williams are so well done that there are moments of genuine shock and terror and very little sympathy for her attitudes and unscrupulous vengeful nature.
If the witch hunting circumstances in The Crucible needed a saviour or two to help quell the tide of Lucifer worshipping accusations and rapid fire hangings, Nik Hedges’ Deputy Gov. Danforth and Joe Foster’ Judge Hathorne may be a ‘Christian’ step too far in their unshakeable Puritan prides and prejudices. Foster’s Hathorne is shown as particularly unbending. In Danforth’s morally strict interpretation, either a person is with his court or against it and there is no road between. He also brings forth his Puritanical belief that, if there is fear in the country; it is because, as he dictates with some venom, there is a ‘moving plot to topple Christ in the country’. He doesn’t mix his words and he sure has plenty of them to iterate. Both Hedges and Foster excel in their roles requiring a strong command of language from the actors and a palpable feeling of authority. They achieve high levels of credibility especially in the brilliantly choreographed scene with the hysterical girls crying out that Satan is possessing the young girl, Mary Warren, played by Eden Silk.
Silk’s playing of the timid and easily flattered Mary Warren, sometime crony of Abigail Williams, is excellent. Her brash confrontation with John Proctor has so many parallels with modern society where foolishly emboldened teenagers clash with adult figures of authority. Her acting when being betrayed and manipulated by the crazed gang of girls in the court is very believable as is the acting of the company as a whole. Equally, John Proctor’s classic line to Mary Warren “Do that which is good and no harm shall come to thee.” has little credible weight in the courts and beleaguered lives of the mostly uneducated simple farming folk Massachusetts in the seventeenth century .
A key figure with little time on stage is Reverend Parris’s black slave, Tituba, credibly played by Maureen Nwabueze. Her Act IV histrionic declarations that she will be flying home to Barbados with the Devil – the pleasure man, are pathetic in the sense that the audience know full well that she will be killed for her purported knowledge of how to speak to the dead.
As alluded to earlier in this review there are many excellent performances that grace and enhance this stalwart production amongst which are Jack Leo’s zealous Reverend Samuel Pariss, Max Bromley’s blustering Giles Corey, Fred Baker’s genuine Reverend John Hale and Emma Rayner’s solid Goodwife Anne Putnam.
The Crucible production photos are all by Grace Eden Photography.
The excellent lighting (Philip Hogarth) and sound design (Darren Coxon) add immeasurably to the productions atmospheres as do the costumes by Sue Drew and The Lace Market costume department. This worthwhile production runs at The Lace Market Theatre until Saturday 29th November.
Historical notes:
As Arthur Miller based his play around real people it is understood that Rev Parris was voted out of office and never heard of again. Abigail Williams is said to have turned up as a prostitute in Boston. Twenty years after the executions surviving family members were awarded compensation. Some people still refused to admit their guilt. The excommunications were overturned in 1712. Four years after the death of John Proctor, his wife Elizabeth re-married. Farms belonging to the victims remained unoccupied for up to a hundred years. To quote the final words spoken by Kareena Sims, “To all intents and purposes, the power of theocracy in Massachusetts, was broken.”
