A child’s spirit is like a child - you can never catch it by running after it

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews...

The Crucible : Gielgud Theatre

My first trip out in nearly 2 months - but I'm be making up for things over the coming month.

And there's a very interesting scene that greets me as I enter the theatre - a curtain of water.  It's impressive both for being the full height of the stage and also falling into a very well defined area - the front row of seats were occupied and really not that far away from where the water was landing.  It was started up again between each act and worked well in terms of obscuring any scene shifting going on behind it and also being transformed by effective lighting - I've seen a surprising amount of rain on stage this year, but I've not seen a water curtain and it worked pretty well.

And when the curtain comes down, we're in church with some nice singing - I don't know a lot about this play but I do know that religion features pretty heavily.  After the singing finishes, there's an impressive bit of scene shifting and we're in a bedroom where something is going down around an ill girl, but it's not entirely clear what.  I would say that it takes a bit of time to make things clear and I was worried it was going to be a long evening, but with hindsight it has a job to do to introduce us to quite a few characters and set up their backstory and it does it well.

I'm not going to go into any details about the play - the core of the story is the Salem witch trials of 1692/3 and it's a very well constructed tale about how people got caught up in and also took advantage of them.  The tension builds steadily throughout the play and you're held in its grip as you wait to see who is going to escape either physically or morally unscathed - the dilemma being that, once accused, only a confession of guilt will save them from death by hanging.  

If the tale wasn't based on real-life events you'd consider it utterly delusional, but having read the Wikipedia entry on the trials, the play is reasonably grounded when compared with what actually happened (eg four year olds were accused of witchcraft and interviewed in court).  It raises very interesting points about religion and "good vs evil" but manages to relate them to wider aspects of life - Wikipedia informs me that the play was written as an allegory on McCarthyism and Arthur Miller was later questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities (part of me thinks I should read up on these things before I go and see them).

It's all, as expected, well acted - the couple at the heart of the play are John and Elizabeth Proctor who are played here by Brian Gleeson (who I last saw in Bad Sisters) and Caitlin Fitzgerald (who is glacially smooth in both Succession and Station Eleven) and they both excel.  Neither of the roles or their relationship is exactly standard but they both sell all aspects really well and are very watchable.  Wikipedia tells me that previous pairings on Broadway have been Liam Neeson/Laura Linney and Ben Whishaw/Sophie Okonedo, all of whom I can imagine did an OK job, I guess...

The other "star" name used to promote the play is Milly Alcock (House Of The Dragon) who plays Abigail Williams, one of the shows main antagonists - she is perfectly fine, but it's a role that pretty much disappears after the first act so maybe don't go expecting the Milly Alcock show.  

The other names I'd pick out of the cast for special mentions are Fisayo Akinade as Reverend Hale and Matthew Marsh as Deputy Governor Danforth, with both men striving to do "the right thing" whilst also not wanted to be proven wrong - with very different versions of "the right thing" being in play.  I'm also going to mention "the girls" (sorry - too many to name) in the mass hysteria scenes in the final act - they're very well done indeed.

What really makes this play stand out for me is the set design and lighting - the set is sparse (as things would have been in 1692) but it is lit in such a way that nearly every scene looks like a painting, with a brooding contrast between light and shade highlighting the nature of the play.  It's just beautiful and easily the most stylish looking thing that I've seen this year.

I'm also going to give a shout out to the Gielgud theatre - I liked it the last time I went and the impression that it's one of the better old theatres was only reinforced by this visit.  I had a seat right in the back row but it was comfortable and I had an excellent view of the stage.  I also found Binkys Bar this time which is an utterly charming bar right at the top of the theatre with great views across London and I also took a pic of the Circle Bar ceiling because it's just breathtaking.

Back to the play, I really enjoyed this even from my initial position of complete ignorance around one of the classics of American theatre.  It's obviously old-fashioned, both from the date that it's set and the date it was written (1953) but it manages to feel remarkably relevant whilst also looking absolutely gorgeous.  If you want to see it, then you'd better get a move on because it finishes on Saturday, but there were still some empty seats around me last night, so you might be in luck - I think it's well worth a trip.

Anything Goes - very enjoyable indeed
Oklahoma! - well this was, errr, yes...