'The Crucible' review or 'There be no unnatural causes here.'

'The Crucible', Arthur Miller
Storyhouse Chester, 22nd June 2018
Written for The Guardian 

The corruptive influence of power. The age-old repression of women. The innate desire just to be heard. It’s as ripe a time as any for a revival of Arthur Miller’s classic but, despite some stinging comic touches, this faithful production directed by Geraldine Alexander feels a little remote and under-powered.

Alexander and designer Jess Curtis stick with Miller’s original context, Salem 1692. The aesthetic is firmly set at “gloomy puritanical” with an abundance of brown cloaks, white coifs and black ecclesiastical gowns. The back walls of the stage are lined by a looming set of bulky and worn wooden doors that define the limits of a range of Salem locations. As the trials begin and countless women are accused of witchcraft, those doors turn from a protective force to an imprisoning one. We see only occasional glimpses of the beautiful woodland that lies beyond – a reminder of the way in which horizons can become limited in small-town communities.

Matthew Flynn towers above the cast as farmer John Proctor – a powerful but aloof man, one step removed from those around him. When he is ordered to recite the Ten Commandments in order to prove his faith he visibly shrinks, suddenly a lost and frightened child. Later, as Proctor goes head to head with Martin Turner’s sickeningly slick deputy governor and argues passionately for his wife’s life, Simon Slater’s clawing sound design churns overhead. Finally, after a series of slightly flat scenes (not helped by some dodgy blocking), Miller’s Crucible begins to boil.

There are some nice sparks of dark comedy, particularly when a parishioner hovers nervously over a bed-bound girl, just in case she might fly. The young women of Salem don’t feel as prominent as they might, but Leigh Quinn is deeply unsettling as the profoundly conflicted Mary Warren. Impossibly pale and slight, she stands alone in a court packed with men. It takes all her energy to stay upright. Gradually – and with a flinch of recognition – we watch her succumb to the intense pressure, driven near-mad by an angry and all-encompassing male gaze.