Sanity returns to the Globe. Recent modern-dress productions have failed to make use of the theatre’s virtues as a historical backdrop. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is set in the 1690s (about a century after Shakespeare’s heyday) and the script works beautifully on this spare, wooden stage. To make the groundlings feel involved, the playing area has been extended into the pit with two separate platforms for the judges and the witnesses. James Groom, as Willard the demented jailer, terrifies the crowd by striding around the arena, barking madly at anyone who gets in his way. It grabs your attention.
The dashing Gavin Drea (John Proctor) looks terrific in the lead role alongside Phoebe Pryce as his mistrustful, nervy wife, Elizabeth. Both play their parts with strong Irish accents. Which is a puzzle. How did this nice couple from Ireland settle in a hard-line Protestant community where everyone has Anglo-Saxon roots (apart from Tituba who comes from Barbados)? Their diction is not always a perfect match for Miller’s language. Among the younger cast, Bethany Wooding stands out as the frivolous, scheming turncoat, Mary Warren. Steve Furst, who used to play the spoof nightclub crooner, Lennie Beige, has transformed himself into Reverend Parris. And he’s excellent as the two-faced, priggish control freak.
There are no dud performances in Ola Ince’s brilliant production. Howard Ward brings a canny warmth to the role of Giles Corey. The wonderful Jo Stone-Ewings (Reverend Hale) starts as a prickly despot and ends up as a penitent hero who admits his mistakes. The website calls the show a ‘must-see thriller’ but that only tells half the story.
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