The title of John Proctor is the villain it’s grinding right away. Of course Proctor, by Arthur Miller Crucibleit is terrible; he seduces a teenage girl and then throws her out as a “whore”; he is a bad man, a bad master, a pretty average citizen of Salem. But he admits his sins and dies! What do you want more?
Kimberly Belflower’s play puts Proctor, Salem and the misogyny of the 1690s, 1950s and 2010s under the microscope. John Proctor is the villain was a hit when it first appeared on Broadway last year, directed by and starring Danya Taymor Foreign thingsSadie Sink. Now Taymor, with much of the same creative team, has brought the show to London’s Royal Court Theatre. Despite the title and the simplicity of its plot, the show is exciting to watch.
We are in an English class in a rural “one stop” town in Georgia. The show takes place in 2018, part of the period from the first Trump era, post-MeToo, before the repeal of Roe vs. Wade. The set, designed by AMP with Theresa L Williams, is a meticulously aged classroom covered in motivational posters and church leaflets. The girls talk about Taylor Swift and cheer AND BuzzFeed. All their jeans are high waisted.
The students are reading Crucible with their cool, feminist teacher, mr. Smith, (a charismatic Dónal Finn), who sings Lorde to the class and tells them how much he loves Joan Didion. Mr. Smith sometimes runs into Miss Gallagher, a sweet woman played by Molly McFadden – Kerry Katona’s daughter! – but together they help the girls start a feminist society. One girl, Shelby (Sadie Soverall), the “town slut,” has been missing school for six months, and no one knows why — especially not her ex-best friend, Raelynn.
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The cast is mostly excellent – Holly Howden Gilchrist is funny as the nervous Beth; Miya James’ portrayal of Raelynn’s insecurities is extremely good. Only Overall’s performance feels forced at times.
Shelby returns and turns everything into chaos. It is known that the father of a student is violent; a male student is sexually aggressive.
The girls begin to question Miller’s text. Shelby thinks Abigail, traditionally the villain, was “awesome” and John Proctor’s insistence on clearing his name was just vanity. (Never mind that Abigail wanted a lot of women dead, never mind that the witch trials would never stop if everyone kept lying. That’s nonsense.)
One by one, man after man falls down. Meanwhile, women remain pretty sacred. Nell, a junior from Atlanta, complains about people saying she’s “too much.” “What they really mean,” she says, “is simply, Nell is a girlTired lines like this might have worked better for an American audience. My fingers curled at Shelby’s statement, “I hold frickin’ crowds.”
All nuance is lost on the show’s final beats, set to Lorde’s “Green Light.” But it still leaves you alive. You want to bite, dance and cry with these witches. Who cares if men hang?
(Further reading: Lily Allen’s Revenge Tour)
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