"The Crucible" Bewitches at the Sheldon

By Ladd Wendelin

“Pray, calm yourselves. I have eleven children and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons…”

- Rebecca Nurse, The Crucible, Act I, Scene 1

“Yup, we’re Witch City, alright.”

- Mechanic, overheard at Magic Discount Muffler, Jan. 2008, Salem, MA

***

What’s left to say about The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s tireless warhorse of a play concerning the 1693 miscarriage of justice in the quaint, easily spooked village of Salem, Massachusetts? Apparently, in the capable hands of Angels Theatre Company and director Becky Key Boesen, just enough to bring John Proctor and the rest into Digital Age. The production runs through Sunday, Nov. 13^th, Abbot Auditorium (12^th & R), presented by Angels Theatre Company In collaboration with the Sheldon Museum of Art, and the Nebraska Girls Shakespeare Company.

Ask anyone with a high school diploma, and they should be able to recall the plot of The Crucible, suffice to say it’s a mostly historically accurate retelling of the Salem Witch Trials of 1693. While it’s nice to see classic tried-and-true dramatic texts revived and brought to the forefront of the local theater scene with some regularity by capable directors and a cast of newcomers and veteran performers, you have to wonder why. The themes are timeless, to be sure – in the face of wanton religious zealotry and superstition, the only real justice comes from standing up for what is right, even in the face of certain death.

For this production, Boesen has contemporized The Crucible’s original setting while retaining Miller’s highly-stylized archaic dialogue. Fortunately, the strength of Boesen’s directorial prerogative rings true, and it works for the most part (Who is Abigail Williams texting in the first scene?). The costuming has been scaled back from typical Puritan attire associated with the play to the sort of everyday fashion you might see worn around Lincoln. Proctor (Scott Herr) is a blue-collar worker who enjoys an ice-cold beer at the end of the day, while Abigail Williams (Noemi Berkowitz) could pass for a high school sophomore in her skirt, turquoise jacket and high-heeled boots – a get-up befitting of her conniving, witchy personality.

The obvious strength of Boesen’s staging is how nicely it gels with the clean modern setting of Abbot Auditorium. Actors make their entrances and exits from the aisles or the first row of the auditorium, popping up from their seat right on cue. Images projected on the backdrop simply suggest the setting of each scene, while a few spare pieces of Sheldon gallery furniture function as set pieces. The overall effect is sleek and effective – no harm done, even though Miller’s thunderous dialogue often overtakes Boesen’s reimagining and forces us back to The Crucible’s original pre-Colonial setting.

The Crucible isn’t the most entertaining play, especially towards its bitter conclusion, and no production I’ve seen is without its hang-ups. Excellent performances abound throughout the cast, particularly from Herr, who never lets up on the intensity even when the tension falters in the courtroom and jail scenes. The five members of Nebraska Girls Shakespeare Company are convincing as the possessed girls. Margery Dunkle’s Mary Warren is a standout, but Berkowitz’s Williams is underwhelming opposite Herr. It’s a stretch to believe they’ve carried out an adulterous affair. The iTunes Genius mix of foreboding, witch-themed music throughout comes across as a bit too obvious in its selection, although I’m as much a fan of Kate Bush and Radiohead as Boesen is. Also, Tituba’s (Leticia Martinez-Meitzen) costume seems as if it slipped past the contemporizing sweep seen in the rest of the cast.

Perhaps Angels and Boesen were onto something by staging The Crucible, which no matter what the season,  is entirely justified with the strength of directorial vision and a diverse cast.

The Crucible runs Saturday, Nov. 12^th, and Sunday, Nov. 13^th with performances at 7:30 p.m. each night, Abbot Auditorium inside the Sheldon Museum of Art, UNL main campus (12^th and R). Tickets are $15 general admission, $5 for students, call 402-937-1960 or visit www.angelscompany.org for tickets. 

 

Comments

[Eric Jones]

Pretty amazing. I've seen a lot of contemporizing of traditional plays that really tore the play apart. (One curious staging of "The Tempest" ended up looking like a de facto episode of "Gilligan's Island".) It's great to read about one that actually works.

[Josef Dingle]

Does everyone miss the metaphor? I think the director did and apparently the critic as well. Does no one care anymore as to WHY Miller wrote the play? What it stood for then and could easily stand for now?

Terrible stage, terrible entrances up and down the stairs. Weird volume levels from the actors who yelled for no reason through the whole show.

[Josef Dingle]

Also, is it ethically sound for you to be reviewing plays your relatives are cast in without at least disclosing that in the review?

[Ladd Wendelin]

First off, no - the metaphor is not lost on me. The Crucible has been around for over half a century, so I don't think it's lost on anyone who is familiar with it, why it was written, and the extenuating historical context for which it was written - McCarthy Hearings/Communism/Blacklisted patriots, etc. Its themes, as I mentioned in the review, are timeless and should not be lost on anyone ever in good conscience.

Secondly, yes - there is a "conflict of interest", as you pointed out, in reviewing plays my relatives are in. Instead, I deliberately focused on the principle actors and the overall aesthetic of the production. My sister, Rory Wendelin, made her Lincoln debut in The Crucible as Judge Hawthorne. And as far as conflicts of interest go, I could not be more proud of her.

[Josef Dingle]

Thank you for your honest response.