Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Saturday 6th August, 2016
The Salem Witch Trials of 1692-3 are the basis for
Arthur Miller's iconic play,
The Crucible, which a good many people would have studied at high school. The University of Adelaide
Theatre Guild is presenting this classic as their mid winter production under the direction of Geoff Brittain. First produced in 1953, Miller draws parallels with the Communist 'witch hunts' led by Senator McCarthy. Sixty years on, and in Australia, the Wisconsin politician and his label of "un-American Activities", his interrogations of those suspected of being Communists, and the lives and careers destroyed are no longer relevant as a contemporary to the play. The concept, though, lives on but, now, the witches and Communists have become terrorists.
The play normally begins with Reverend Samuel Parris praying at the bedside of his daughter, Betty, who seems to be in a coma, but director, Geoff Brittain, has opted to begin with the opening scene from the film version where a group of young girls are sipping a brew being produced in a cauldron by Tituba, the slave that Parris brought with him from Barbados. She sings in her native tongue and waves her arms over the fire, and the girls dance around wildly, one discarding her clothes, but Parris has seen them and interrupts their revelries.
This is actually covered in the opening scene when his niece, Abigail Williams, who was one of the girls, is questioned by him over his comatose daughter, so we effectively get it twice. Ann Putnam and her husband Thomas arrive and announce that their own daughter is unresponsive, although her eyes are open. Ann has already lost seven children in childbirth and blames witchcraft. Parris sends for Reverend Hale to investigate, hoping he will declare Betty's illness has nothing to do with the supernatural. Things, however, soon escalate, with Tituba confessing that
The Devil had possessed her, and the girls, under the influence of Abigail, claim that the spirits of some of the townswomen had come to them in the woods and tried to turn them into witches.
Abigail had worked for the Proctor's but Elizabeth Proctor had dismissed her for seducing her husband, John, and Abigail points the finger at Elizabeth to have her accused as a witch. Unlike some of the others, she is not hung as she is pregnant, but John is also accused and faces the gallows. Reverend Hale is increasingly suspicious that the girls are lying, but Deputy Governor Danforth who is trying the accused, refuses to believe Hale, especially as it would mean, in doing so, that he had murdered innocent women.
We see the insanity of these trials in the way that those accused are to hang unless they repent and confess to being witches. Naturally, many confess, even though they are innocent and, as part of the confession, they are required to point out other witches, which they do to avoid being hung.
This system worked throughout Europe as well, where it was carried out according to the guidelines in the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of the Witches, the Church's handbook of the witch hunters that was first published in 1486. It worked well for the authorities, until those confessing began accusing the rich, the powerful, and members of the clergy of being witches, at which time the Inquisition quickly faded out.
The straw covered floor, the barn doors, and
Richard Parkhill's lighting, evoke all of the locations as well as the simplicity of the time and place, making it easy to accept the ignorance, the hysteria, and the cruelty done in the name of religion. Perhaps things have not changed that much.
Chris Leech plays the Puritan preacher, the Reverend Samuel Parris, austere, paranoid, self-righteous, and disliked by many of the townsfolk. Leech gives us a solid performance as a man who is more worried about his own reputation and position in society than he is of his daughter or niece.
His niece, Abigail, is played by Zoe Dibb, who presents us with a cold and calculating teenaged Svengali, wielding her influence over the younger girls and manipulating the adults. Dibb instils her character with a chilling undertone, suggesting that even her affair with
John Proctor was physical rather than loving and her attempt to have his wife hung is about revenge more than wanting him for herself.
The thorn in Parris's side,
John Proctor, is played with passion by Kim Clark, in a fine performance, building marvellously to John's final scene with his wife, Elizabeth.
Cheryl Douglas plays Elizabeth Proctor, adding another to her string of successful roles. She gives Elizabeth an inner strength and air of defiance that brings sparks to her interactions with the opposing group.
Gabi Douglas, following in her mother's footsteps, plays the Reverend's daughter, Betty Parris, and is one to watch if this nicely crafted performance is anything to go by.
John Hale is played by Ben Todd, in another of the strong characterisations in this production. Todd gives a good account of Hale's uncertainly of the veracity of the evidence given by the girls, particularly their leader, Abigail, and his questioning of his own beliefs and the validity of witch hunting.
Steve Marvanek appears as Deputy Governor Danforth, excellent as the belligerent and closed minded administrator who, when faced with the probability that the girls have been lying all along, refuses to accept it and continues on his path as, to do otherwise, would be to admit that he had been hanging innocent people.
Rhoda Sylvester's Tituba is also worth noting, and I am sure that we'll be seeing more of her, too.
There are some good performances from others in the cast in smaller roles, of which there are many, but varied accents could use some help from an accent coach, and a little more light and shade rather than long sections of shouting, would have improved the performance enormously. The gritty and physically violent aspects, though, better reflect the times better than so many of the nice clean and tidy versions often seen.
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