The Crucible at Big Couch through August 14
In the past 23 years, there’s been two Broadway revivals of Arthur Miller’s modern classic The Crucible yet, to the best of my knowledge, no productions by local companies, and possibly even longer than that (university and high school productions notwithstanding). I’m not sure why that’s the case (the large cast it requires, its distant setting in time & place, its being crowded out by all the Tennessee Williams revivals, etc.), but Fat Squirrel’s current superlative production makes up for that. Get thee to Big Couch before the run ends on August 14 in case this Tony Award-winning play doesn’t materialize here again for another 2+ decades.
Miller’s script, an allegory in which the 17th century Salem witch trials stand in for the McCarthy trials and Communist witch hunt of the 1950s, still holds up as it mixes the personal and the political, and keeps your attention riveted for its entire 3 hour running time.
Director Andrea Watson takes a traditional, straightforward approach to the script. (Although the show’s press release said that this “production will be presented as an examination of mental health, exploring the effect a Puritanical society has on young women, especially as seen in conversion disorder, a type of mass hysteria that results in a physical manifestation of trauma”, I didn’t detect much of that, and it didn’t seem to impact my appreciation of this Crucible much one way or the other.)
On a virtually bare stage, Watson’s crisp direction isn’t showy, at all, but she’s guided her entire 20-member ensemble, costumed in period-appropriate garb, to give honest, forthright, and emotionally compelling performances. Who can ask for much more?
Perfectly cast, this production does New Orleans proud as it displays the deep bench of acting talent we have here, about half of whom were faces new to me. At the risk of being repetitions, permit me to use (and reuse) the adjectives I noted down to describe the performances as I watched the show.
As the pompous Rev. Samuel Parris who discovers the teenage girls dancing in the forest and realizes their perfidy too late, John Jabaley was excellent.
As Abigail Williams, the Queen Bee of the girls, Emory Farber was excellent.
As Rebecca Nurse, a revered town elder who falls victim to the hysteria of the time, Mary Pauley was excellent.
As John Proctor, a farmer who had a fling with Abigail when she worked for him and his wife Elizabeth as a housekeeper and now deeply regrets it, Jonathan Mares was excellent as he made clear that Proctor was flawed and no sweetie, but certainly not a bad guy. Too harsh on his wife? Certainly. Too harsh on himself? For sure.
As Tituba, the Barbadian slave of the Parris family, Chasity Hart was excellent, giving dignity and humanity to this woman caught up in tragic circumstances beyond her control.
As Elizabeth Proctor, Anja Avsharian was superb, not only in her acting, but in the subtle gradations of her “re”-acting. Together with Mares, they made the scenes between John and Elizabeth crackle with dramatic tension.
(l.-r.) Anja Avsharian, Jonathan Mares, Benjamin Clement, and Ken Pauley (partially hidden) in The Crucible
As Mary Warren, a teenage girl who has replaced Abigail as the Proctors’ servant and who wavers, pulled between telling the truth and saving her skin, Mary Langley was excellent.
As the other girls who see spirits and claim townspeople are witches, Saoirse McCrossen, Enne Samuel, and Maddie Fry were all excellent.
As the Rev. John Hale, a young minister who starts out fervently investigating & charging those suspected of being witches before he has a turnaround and, disillusioned with the abuses of the trials, tries to save as many as possible, Miles Hamauei was excellent in his portrayal of moral confusion and upheaval.
As Deputy Governor Danforth, the autocratic chief judge of the court, Clint Johnson, previously best known to me for his cabaret and musical theater performances, was superb. Sporting a most posh accent, popping his P’s and rolling his sibilant S’s, Johnson may have made Danforth pompous, self-righteous, and full of himself–all most appropriately so–but clearly he was not stupid, not in the least. Capable of explosive outbursts, this Danforth terrified in his Trumpiness.
The rest of the cast (Benjamin Adams, Ryan Bruce, Benjamin Clement, Lauren A. Gauthier, Becca Larkin, Ken Pauley, Joe Signorelli, James Wright) all gave fine performances in smaller roles.
If the stage sometimes gets a little overcrowded, and occasionally things border on the melodramatic, but just a smidge, one can easily overlook these quibbles in this otherwise highly satisfying evening of theater in the Bywater.
As The Crucible describes a “world gone mad”, one can only wonder what Miller would make of things today.
[For tickets and more information, go to https://fatsquirrelnola.square.site/product/the-crucible/K5HLNTB2FEB5AT6DGRBUPEKU?cs=true&cst=custom]
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Loyola’s Marquette Theatre through August 10
Coming home recently from The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company’s production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, I was saddened or, to use a $5 word like “mendacity” (heard so often in Cat), melancholic. Not so much because of the production (more on that later), but because, as was made abundantly clear in this revival, Tennessee Williams’ plea for tolerance still goes unheard all too often, especially nowadays.
For, in the climatic scene between Brick and his father Big Daddy, what came through, more than I’ve seen before, is Big Daddy’s understanding of why Brick is filled with disgust (which is causing Brick to drink himself to death). It’s because when Brick’s dear friend Skipper called Brick to confess he was gay, Brick hung up the phone on him.
While Brick can be interpreted as a closet homosexual, as someone once wisely pointed out to me, Williams was too sophisticated for that; rather, Brick’s tragedy comes from, despite claiming that Skipper was his “great true friend,” when Skipper finally eschews mendacity for the truth, Brick couldn’t handle it, his prejudices and homophobia overcoming what should’ve been his compassion.
To be sure, that’s not a surprising response given the era in which Cat was written; reference is made to driving a high school classmate, suspected of being gay, away to North Africa. And while one would like to think things are better today, as witnessed by gay/straight alliances in schools, all one has to do is look at current headlines to see we have a long way to go. And hence my melancholia about how little has changed in the 70 years since Cat debuted on Broadway.
In any case, in this production of Cat, that brief passage, which can sometimes get lost, rightly stood out as the point of the play and the moment at which Brick might begin to turn his life around as Big Daddy, while not necessarily excusing Brick’s actions, sagely councils his son to forgive himself for his reckless response to Skipper.
Credit Brandon Kotfila as Brick and Randy Cheramie as Big Daddy for this. This is not Cheramie’s first turn as Big Daddy; he portrayed Cat’s patriarch in 2014 for The NOLA Project and is every bit as exceptional now as he was then, his outstanding interpretation of the role, filled with nuance and bluster, merely ripening, like a fine wine, in the intervening years.
Brandon Kotfila and Randy Cheramie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Kotfila’s Brick is a cipher at first; for most of Act One (this production combines the three acts into two), he seemed to be thinking about something, turning it over in his alcoholic haze. Kotfila leaned so heavily into this that it paid off when, later, it becomes apparent what is gnawing at his soul. While I could understand another opinion, to me it seemed Kotfila’s casual but mean-spirited references to the gay couple (those “old queens”) who willed the grand plantation to Big Daddy reveal a true abhorrence of gays (no enlightenment here) and so the conflict between his genuine friendship with Skipper, his repugnance at Skipper’s homosexuality, and his shame at his response to it anchor this tale of family dysfunction and jockeying for an estate. (Note how Diane K. Baas’ lighting often spotlights Brick’s face even when others are speaking.)
Certainly, that urge to get her share of the family legacy was one thing Rebecca Elizabeth Hollingsworth as Maggie, Brick’s wife, made abundantly clear in a way I’ve never quite seen before–money motivates her; she comes from poverty and doesn’t intend to ever return there.
Flicking her hair back as she holds the stage for about an hour, railing against those “no neck monster” nieces and nephews of hers, Hollingsworth brings a keen intelligence to her portrayal, but I do wish there had been less of it; just enough of Maggie’s virtual monolog is repetitious to keep the first act at a low boil. Yet whenever Williams deepens the material, allowing Maggie to reveal her inner self and the neuroses that haunt her, Hollingsworth goes from giving a perfectly good performance to an absolutely gripping one.
Margeaux Fanning nicely limns a sympathetic Big Mama; we empathize as Big Daddy’s cruelty towards her seems to come out of nowhere (I’ve always felt that the script itself never justifies or makes creditable Big Daddy’s accusation that Big Mama is “trying to take over the place.”) Big Mama may not be flawless (sure, she’s a little clingy), but nothing Williams writes makes her out to be that bad and Fanning properly imbues her with an imperfect humanity.
As with his other productions of Williams, particularly the major works, Augustin J Correro has gotten the play’s rhythms right as well as the staging, pacing and overall interpretation of the characters (tho I wish he had guided Monica R. Harris, a usually fine actress, to have given a less caricaturish portrayal of Mae, Big Daddy and Big Mama’s other daughter-in-law; sure, she’s a bit comic but the humor comes from a meanness that makes her simultaneously laughable and pitiful as Diana E.H. Shortes brought out in Le Petit’s Cat two years ago.)
Yet while clarifying and focusing the Brick/Big Daddy scene as mentioned, Correro was unwilling or unable to bring out anything significantly new in this Cat; it wasn’t all that different from the two previous Cats we’ve had here like seeing productions of La traviata or La boheme with different sets, costumes and casts but fundamentally the same approach.
How could he do this? I’m not sure. Maybe set it in an Arab country with oil fields substituting for cotton fields (tho that might, admittedly, be a challenge to cast in New Orleans). But something, anything.
I do realize I might be applying a double standard having said of Fat Squirrel’s traditional Crucible, “Who can ask for much more?” Yet that show hasn’t been seen here in many, many years, nor does it have such a beloved and iconic movie version that’s readily available as Cat does. (I think I saw the 1996 cinematic Crucible but only vaguely remember it; I suspect most others would feel the same way as it was a sturdy but hardly earthshattering adaptation despite having a script by Miller himself.) Actually, a Crucible set in an Arab land and adapted by a Muslim playwright does sound quite interesting.
The theme of The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company’s forthcoming season is “Second Chances”. Let’s hope we’ll get original approaches and wildly imaginative new interpretations of the works that will be done. And that’s no mendacity.
[For more information and tickets, go to https://ci.ovationtix.com/35398/production/1216006?performanceId=11536114
