Indulgence Theatre Company presents Arthur Miller´s classic drama, set during the Salem witch hunt of 1692. The small community is stirred into panic by superstition, rumour, malice and paranoia.
The tragic climax is a relevant and timely reminder of the evils of mindless persecution and the terrifying power of false accusations.
Reviews
INDULGENCE Theatre´s excellent production of Arthur Miller´s The Crucible refined this populist piece into a nugget of pure gold, belying the amateur status of the players.
From the pretty gilded trees that adequately set the intended sense of claustrophobia, through the simple and effective costuming that was of its time and helped to both support and focus the characters, the staging was austere and harmonious; set up as a series of tableau which could have been painting sets from an artists studio. Lovely just to look at.
The play centres around John and Elizabeth Proctor – played by Jez Ashberry and Jo Hollingworth – a couple trying to rescue their marriage from the devastating effects of a brief affair between John and Abigail Williams. Both characters are a little colourless at the start but develop in strength and stoicism along with the story to leave you wanting to know more.
Her restrained passion for good, and her love for her husband bring her alive in the courtroom scene – the discourse between her and the judge is perfectly done – and her final, solitary tableau is poignant, tragic and very beautiful.
John is a man always on the back foot, and whilst it is clear how busy he is fighting his own demons, one cannot help but wish that Miller had given a better opportunity to see the ‘whole man’. In Jez´s performance we get close to it as he develops across the four acts.
Aggi Gunstone presents a very strong, determined character in Abigail Williams, the protagonist of destruction, but with little of that vain self absorption and growing sense of desperation at the spiralling events which might be expected. For my tastes she was too old, too experienced, and too deliberate. Her red dress made a cuckoo of her from the opening scene, showing her to be neither a part nor a product of this straightened 1692 Massachusettes community.
By contrast, Becci Mason plays the gullible, easily manipulated Mary Warren with all the teenage fickle despair and insecurity that is required. Although barely audible in the first scene, once she finds her place in the Proctors´ home, tentative self–importance soon quashed by John´s brusque questioning, Mary´s lynch pin presence, whether subdued or emotive, is a continuous focus for the rest of the play. She is totally believable.
This play is generally regarded as an indictment of the McCarthy witch-hunts of post–war America. – the need to create and expose the demon within. This was personified in the role of Judge Danforth played by David Smith. It was sheer genius to cast a small, slight man in this role. Neat, precise and with a sadistic addiction to the righteous humiliation and suffering of those around him; the only two occasions of wavering (John´s admission of adultery and his final confession) become further opportunities for inflicting pain … all in the name of justice. Brilliantly played.
In many ways this showing brought to mind a more domestic agenda of particular relevance to the ‘non-consequential’ video game playing generation. The slow realisation that actions do have consequences, sometimes beyond our control, was picked up most effectively by Rev John Hale (Colin Brimblecombe), and less sympathetically by the unlikeable Rev Parris, played by Chas Rodgers, who succeeded in bamboozling with the veneer of respectability for most of the first act.
The other modern–day agenda with which this play resonates is the constant feeding frenzy of ‘celebrity’ scandal. This is exemplified most effectively through the occasional interventions of nonentity clerk Ezekiel Cheever, played by Jason Hippisley – thrilled to be a cog (any cog!) in this wheel of scandal; determined to make himself relevant and necessary and blind to the actuality of the appalling consequences of his intervention.
That rings true to the shame of so much of what seems to excite us as a society in these days.
Of the other minor characters, Rebecca Nurse (Ba Wheeler) was excellently sage, and Tim Bradford played the characterful Giles Corey with an enthusiasm that I missed each time he left the stage.
Stills remain in my mind for frequent re–visitation, most notably the chorus of denunciation in the first scene, Elizabeth Proctor´s courtroom dilemma, the silent file of be–bonnetted girls and their unison shrill screaming, and the jail reunion of the Proctors and Elizabeth´s final solitary tableau. These were all beautifully choreographed and held to accentuate the painterly quality and poise of the whole.
Rachel M Denton, Market Rasen Mail
Our Next Production
To be announced!