THE CRUCIBLE. To 28 February.
Sheffield
THE CRUCIBLE
by Arthur Miller
Crucible Theatre To 28 February 2004
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat 28 Feb 2.30pm
BSL Signed 26 Feb
Talkback 26 Feb
Runs 3hr One Interval
TICKETS: 0114 249 6000
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 February
A white-hot Crucible, vividly theatrical and intensely dramatic.Two women confront each other on stage. Hardly adult, though both used to paid domestic work, one's relieved to be telling the truth at last, the other's scheming with alternate desperation and triumph to keep her falsehoods flying. It's a key moment in Anna Mackmin's strongly characterised revival.
Relief's apparent in Lyndsey Marshal's Mary Warren. One act earlier, retreating from Douglas Henshall's John Proctor, she had self-protectingly stopped him in his disciplinary tracks by shouting that she'd saved Elizabeth Proctor from being accused in court of witchcraft.
Now, in the court ante-room, she almost curls into Proctor for protection from the witch-caller-in-chief, young Abigail Williams.
I doubt there's ever been an Abigail quite like Sinead Matthews'. Sharp-featured, and sharp-minded, with inbuilt duplicity. Lying's not second-nature to her; it's her core, first-nature. This Abigail could lie for New England.
She smears innocence over her features and voice in the way only a guilty child ever does. She has chameleon-quick and thorough changes for each situation. Left alone with sick Betty Parris, she becomes her naked, desperate self, sitting astride Betty, pulling her about to wake the girl up.
She turns away in Proctor's company, till they're alone, when her sexual precocity is amazing in the 17th century Puritan society expressed by the scrubbed boards, white walls with outlined pulpit, and dry earth around the stage edge, with a bucket for the hard-won fruit, where the people pray all round this young woman who's about to manipulate in many cases kill them.
In the court, as the other girls sit back, Abigail leans forward, not missing a moment. And, turned away as Elizabeth Proctor answers Danforth's questions on her answers depends Abigail's credibility Matthews' face flushes, her hand plays nervously with her dress, followed by relief and triumph when Elizabeth's lie saves her.
And how well she reads people. When the most powerful man on stage kneels in sympathy she quickly exploits it, standing and threatening him.
In a strong company, Michael Gould' Reverend Hale also stands out the man of science, using rational enquiry, flawed by his unscientific presuppositions. This is The Crucible as power-play - and interplay of very real character.
Tituba: Ruby Turner
Reverend Samuel Parris: John Dougall
Abigail Williams: Sinead Matthews
Susanna Walcott: Kitty Randle
Ann Putnam/Sarah Good: Sadie Shimmin
Thomas Putnam: Colin Haigh
Mercy Lewis: Rebekah Staton
Mary Warren: Lyndsey Marshal
Betty Parris: Bryony Hannah
John Proctor: Douglas Henshall
Rebecca Nurse: Cherry Morris
Giles Corey: John Burgess
Reverend John Hale: Michael Gould
Elizabeth Proctor: Amelia Bullmore
Francis Nurse: Michael Beint
Ezekiel Cheever: Andrew Frame
Judge Hathorne: Mark Penfold
Deputy-Governor Danforth: Ian Bartholomew
Director: Anna Mackmin
Designer: Lez Brotherston
Lighting: Paul Pyant
Sound: Paul Arditti
Musical Director/Composer: Grant Parsons
Dialect coach: Neil Swain
Assistant director: Toby Whale
2004-02-26 07:50:58