Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Tony Irwin, Christine Heaney, Sally Fildes-Moss, Kevin Foott, Jack Spencer, Sophie O’Shea, Donna Ray Coleman, Dan Pendleton, Lee Burnitt, Shaun Roberts, Leanne Jones, Paula Stewart, Meera Bala, Alex Clark, Bradley Thompson, Sophie Kirby.
Within 12 months Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, arguably one of the towering stage works of the 20th Century, has been performed in Liverpool by two amateur dramatic companies. In both cases the play that has been seen by audiences has left them spellbound and lost for words. This particular version by Tell-Tale Theatre at the Static Gallery and Directed by Emma Whitley and produced by Leanne Jones is without doubt the finest production possibly seen on either side of the Atlantic in decades and something that the playwright would have salivated over and found disturbingly majestic.
The Crucible is a play that is easy to get wrong, to pay the heavy due deference to two of the most shaming episodes in American history can be too much to some companies and certainly some actors. The absolute fear that gripped the country 250 years apart, the tearing apart of society as greed, suspicion and mindless accusations became the norm is something that even the best actors would struggle with. In John Proctor, again one of the most compelling characters in American theatre, he is a man so beset with conflicting and complex emotions that his very life towers across the centuries and makes performing him with the gravitas deserved a mill stone to lumber around with. In Jack Spencer’s portrayal, not only was this gravitas realised but the actor gave indisputably the fear, the absolute conviction of loathing in a society that has become run on whisper and unfounded allegation.
Whilst every single member of the cast gave it all, Kevin Foott magnificent as the religious leader of Salem, the Reverend Pariss, Leanne Jones demonically assured as the wild creature and starter of lies and deception that killed a community, Abigail Williams and the outstanding Donna Ray Coleman as Mary Warren lifted their performances perfectly to give that extra shudder of indecency to the smear hidden between the lie upon groundless accusation.
A gigantic performance by all, Tell-Tale Theatre made The Crucible a highlight of Liverpool Theatre.
Ian D. Hall