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| Photo Courtesy of Salt Lake Community College |
*Forgive me, I forgot my program so I am unable to credit anyone by name except my friend Jon.*
The show opens on Reverend Parris (my good friend and the insanely talented Jon McBride) praying over his seemingly unconscious daughter Betty while neice Abigail Williams stands by. Parris caught Betty, Abigail, and a few other friends dancing by firelight in the forest-allegedly conjuring with Parris' slave from Barbados, Tituba. Upon being caught dancing Betty fainted and is unresponsive. Witchcraft is immediately suspected, although Parris is hesitant to concede to this conclusion as he is not well-liked by his parrish and is worried how this will affect his already ill-standing. John Procter then arrives to Salem to find out what has happened and it is quickly revealed that Abigail had an affair with him while she was working in his home and that is why she is now living with Parris.
Reverend John Hale is then summoned from Beverly to help with Betty and confirm if her stupor is really the Devil's hand at work. Once Hale begins examining Betty she comes out of her stupor and she and Abigail sing a list of names of people whom they have seen with the Devil, including Procter's wife Elizabeth.
From there things snowball and the girls begin accusing everyone and anyone in their village of dealing with the Devil. Eventually High Judges are brought in to 'try' each accused, and their death certificates are all but signed unless they agree to confess to wrong doing and 'return to Jesus'.
Director Mark Fossen has done a wonderful job of bringing this story to life, by not only telling it in a way that is very straightforward, but also making it impossible for the audience to not take the subject matter personally. Fossen did a very good job of instilling fear by attacking every sense he could-an eerie green light (actors were top and bottom lit) with a blood-red back lit scrim and townspeople in silhouette chanting/whispering/singing (honestly I don't know what it was, but man was it chilling) with every mention of witchcraft, and by slowly closing in the Grand's well-grand-stage by flying in additional set pieces as the story progressed and the characters became more stubborn and set in their ways. This introduced a new layer of claustrophobia and discomfort to me as a viewer I would not have experienced otherwise.
The casting was well-done-I immediately felt compassion towards Goody Procter and those who were wrongly accused, extreme dislike and then compassion towards Mary Warren as she wrongfully accused and then struggled with the consequences that came as she tried to withdraw her accusations as well as proving the others were lying too. I immediately disliked Abigail and knew she was a jealous, unstable young girl who would do anything necessary to get what she wanted. I especially loved John Procter. He was perfect; angry and defiant one minute, broken and down trodden at the realization of his mistakes the next.
Jon's Reverend Parris and Governor Danforth were especially infuriating how they staunchly held to the fact they were doing the Lord's work and their willingness to let innocent people lose their lives because of their pride-even in spite of realizing they were wrong and had fallen not only into Abigail's lies, but also the lies of the people who stood to gain financially as people were murdered one by one. I'm still pissed almost an entire day later.
This production of The Crucible is possibly the best I have ever seen. It strikes chords and runs an eerie parallel not only to the issues facing our society today, but also how so many people use their positions to instill hatred and fear to the people they lead with their own stubborn, hateful acts because they believe they are 'doing God's work'.
Please make time to see the 'The Crucible' at the Grand. It runs now through March 24.
Curtain is promptly at 7:30 p.m. at The Grand Theatre, 1575 S. State St., Salt Lake City
$10-$24. Call 801-957-3322 or visit http://www.the-grand.org/ for more information.
1 comment:
I love this show. It's so powerful. We'll definitely try to see it. The Grand always does a great job.
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