Threshold Repertory Stages Potent “Crucible”
RELATIVE NEWCOMERS to the Charleston theater scene, Threshold Repertory Theatre opened its second season last week with an American classic, a play of historical significance full of technical and dramatic challenges.
Another company may have quailed at the prospect of casting, staging, lighting and costuming Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” requiring a cast of 19, and their inaugural production at their brand-new performance space at 84 ½ Society Street they created from the ground up—literally. Theatre Rep not only pulled it off, they reveled in these multiple challenges, creating a memorable piece of theater with style, an almost unrelieved level of intensity, and professionalism.
Miller wrote his three-hour drama as a period piece, set in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, dramatizing the Salem witch trials. Young girls seem to become ill, displaying fits of hysteria and fear, are seen dancing naked in the forest, around a boiling cauldron no less, and in Puritanical New England, all these factors lead to the conclusion that the devil is about. Neighbor accuses neighbor of practicing witchcraft, group hysteria reigns, and the government, heavily influenced by the era’s religiosity, has many citizens jailed, eventually hanging 19 innocent souls.
At its first performance, in January, 1953, “The Crucible” was immediately perceived as an allegory for the short but influential and deleterious reign of Senator Joe McCarthy, who was conducting his own “witch trials” as the progenitor of the House Un-American Activities Committee. In these early days of the Cold War with Soviet Russia, anyone who was a “card-carrying Communist” or was suspected of having Communist tendencies, was called to testify, and, as in Salem, those who “confessed” were required to name others. While not altogether historically accurate (there is no documentation of any affair, for example, a primary plot point in the play), “Crucible” became Miller’s answer to McCarthyism and his own blacklisting, despite his heralded successes as a playwright, including the Pulitzer Prize for “Death of a Salesman” (1949).
In the Theatre Rep production, masterfully and excitingly staged by Executive Director Pam Galle (pronounced ’galley’), the eight demanding leading roles are played by highly skilled actors, well supported by a raft of men, women and young ladies whose talents are prodigious. Will Hodges, a much-seen and admired local who trained in New York, took on the persona of John Proctor, playing the tragic hero with a fine display of a wide range of emotional states, from fear, contempt and outrage to lovingkindness, regret, and courage. His passionate performance never failed to move the appreciative audience. Peter Galle dominated the first scene as Samuel Parris, the latest in a series of reverends who serves the village and father of one of the affected girls. His confusion and denial were tangible, reaching a level of tension and angst a matter of moments into the show—perhaps too much too soon.
Rob Maniscolo’s self-righteous Rev. John Hale turned our initial dislike into support as he underwent a complete change of heart, seeing the disastrous result s of intolerance and ignorance, unlike Laurens Wilson, whose Deputy Governor Danforth was only too eager to punish the whole crowd. Charles Watts grew stronger throughout the play, catching the character of the old farmer Giles Corey whose wife Rebecca Nurse (and wife in real life, Susan Lovell) staunchly refuses to “confess” what is not true. Her palsy was overdone, but Lovell provided not only a sympathetic example of moral strength but much-needed comic relief. Two actors well-known on local stages were cast as the intolerant Judge Hawthorne (Karl Bunch), with Fred Hutter as Thomas Putnam, a man eager to see “justice” done but torn by events, especially his wife Ann’s (Jennifer Metts) birthing multiple infants who died shortly afterwards, both these veterans carrying off supporting roles with their usual expertise.
Four women dominated the stage and under Galle’s sure hand, each turned in a searing performance. Erin Murphy established a palpable presence, perfectly understating her role as the self-contained Elizabeth Proctor, while Laine Hester, as the lead witch monger Abby, provided direct contrast, flying about the stage and sticking to her story even after being confronted with her earlier adultery. CCSD’s School of the Arts Theatre major Callan Shattuck gave a wholly convincing performance as the frenzied Mary Warren.
Kristen May, in the seminal role of Tituba, the Parrises’ slave, proved a welcome addition to the Charleston stage, in her guises as both the source of misguided belief in the power of black magic and her unshakeable belief in this power to fly her back to Barbados, her homeland. Special mention must be made of Sarah Coy, who made a lasting impression in her brief appearance as Sarah Good, perhaps the best-known of the martyrs of Salem, who went insane while waiting in prison to be hanged.
Thanks to Galle and her Tec Director Michael Kordek, Theatre Rep met and surpassed the one element essential in historical drama: uncompromising authenticity. Costumes were designed and hand-made by Cherie May and her team, each a careful reproduction of that period’s dress. From the ladies’ skull caps to great coats to shoes, these were the best renderings of costumes I have seen on a local stage in many years, maybe ever. Likewise, the simple but accurately replicated furniture bespoke the Spartan way of life of these Puritans, so that the look and feel of the production down to the props (like the slightly smelly lanterns) added immeasurably to the suspension of disbelief.
The show is drawing near-capacity audiences, so be sure to get your tix before it closes November 13.
Learn more about their upcoming season.
Looks like a good production but need to correct your history – Joseph McCarthy had absolutely nothing to do with the House on Un-American Activities. Joseph McCarthy was a senator. The committee was organized and run by the Legislature not the Senate. It is a historical inaccuracy to blame McCarthy for House activities. His hunt for spies was in the State Dept, Treasury Dept, and other governmental agencies. The media destroyed him and he died a broken man but was proved right about their being spies in the government. The US government was literally crawling with spies, the most notorious being Alger Hiss and his cronies, the Rosenbergs and Harry Gold, Harold Glasser,Morris Cohen, and many, many more. The Venona Project names something like 150 persons who could have been supplying sensitive information to the Soviet Union post-WW2. The HUAC was chaired by Democratic legislators and started out as a hunt for Nazis and after Soviet spies were discovered in the govt., it expanded its hunt to Communists and eventually Hollywood because the movie industry had so much influence.