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 The Theatreguide.London Review

The Crucible
Olivier Theatre  Autumn 2022; Gielgud Theatre  Summer 2023

The American McCarthyite witch hunts of the late 1940s into the 1950s wrecked thousands of lives as it persecuted anyone who it could tarnish with the label of communism.

It also provoked Arthur Miller to write The Crucible about the horror he saw around him, setting his story in the 17th-century Salem witch trials which resulted in the execution of fourteen women and five men.

Lyndsey Turner’s production gives us the text clearly spoken by characters vaguely identifiable as the 17th Century despite the young women wearing floral dresses and frills that are reminiscent of Laura Ashley.

Unfortunately, the play has been encased in a number of peculiarities that are at the least distracting and in one instance run against the grain of the play.

We are given a prologue and an epilogue that add nothing, an opening religious service in which Abigail is shown looking distracted enough to be hit by the Reverend Parris (Nick Fletcher), and there are a number of special atmospheric effects that may have you pondering their point.

There is a sheet of rain at the front of the stage opening and closing each scene. It is spectacular enough to have audience members taking pictures of it. At various points in the background, there is singing of religious-sounding melodies, and later we get a low-key minimalist humming meant to unsettle the mood. 

If these effects distract from the play, the lighting impressively conjures up a claustrophobic effect, the well-lit front of stage gradually growing darker as it tails off into the great depths of the Olivier from which the characters emerge and depart.

Although there are a few fine performances, notably Tilly Tremayne as Rebecca Nurse and Karl Johnson as Giles Corey, too many of the cast perform with a narrow inflexibility and wandering American accents.

Thus Fisayo Akinade as the Reverend Hale is always a reasonable man even when he is praising rebellion in Andover and the usually brilliant performer Erin Doherty as Abigail Williams speaks consistently in an unshaded rage.

Brendan Cowell’s Proctor as a sort of shuffling working cowboy feela a little undercharged and disconnected.

Proctor’s tragedy is usually movingly emphasised by his wife Elizabeth (Eileen Walsh) ending the play with the words 'He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!'.

But in this production, they are practically swallowed up by the children coming to the front of the stage to tell us that 'Elizabeth married again four years after Proctor’s death' and 'Twenty years after the last execution, the government awarded compensation to the victims still living and to the families of the dead.'

Well, that’s all right then. The world has been put to rights, except it undercuts the drama of the final scene and isn’t even accurate. For instance, Tituba was later sold to pay for the costs of her imprisonment, and at the last count in the 21st Century, the government still hasn’t exonerated all those labelled Salem witches.

Audience members will probably come away talking about the special effects and perhaps wishing it hadn't been quite so long at just under three hours, but they won’t have much idea what Lyndsey Turner was trying to do with this play.

Keith McKenna