Hot from the crucible

Yesterday to the Old Vic to see the Crucible, the subject of many flattering reviews. A long show at more than three and one third hours running time and we were pleased to just catch the 1109 to Epsom on exit, despite the presence on it of some rather young people, rather highly dressed and behaved.

Off too rather a slow start, rather well padded by scene setting music and tableaux, but building up to a terrific climax at the end. A lot more immediate and effective, I imagine, for being done in the round, and we were quite close enough at row N. A rather young and enthusiastic audience with a sprinkling of older people, some of whom were dressed rather loud, perhaps luvvies come to have a peek at friends in the large cast of more than twenty, not including the creative team. A lot for a play these days. A disadvantage of being in the round - with us being in what was the body of the auditorium, facing the proscenium arch - was a lot of flesh and summer clothes directly behind the rather somberly dressed actors. A touch distracting.

We reflected afterwards on how such a thing could come to pass, just about three hundred years ago. Ironic that it should be, in part, a lurid product of the Puritan faith, itself a reaction from the luridities of the Catholic faith which preceded it. The programme talked of the commie scare in the US at the time the play was written, but we associated more to the satanic ritual scare of our own time, in the eighties. Similar, for example, for the way in which nuggets of unpleasant truth became embedded in a far larger narrative. One also hopes that those of the various Muslim faiths are not at this same intolerant and puritanical stage of their development, having started a few hundred years after the Christians got going and being a rather younger faith in consequence: one does worry that this is a stage that one has to go through. One also noticed that the headgear of the Puritan ladies, possibly  the product of some historical research on the matter, looked very like the headgear of many Muslim ladies. Or did the creative people just do what the Muslim ladies do, without bothering to check what the Puritan ladies actually did, wanting to make a point without having to go to the bother of checking their facts?

The illustration taken from google maps is of a church in Maple Street in Danvers MA, not too far from the scene. Note the banner advertising the annual rubber duck race to the right; the inhabitants have clearly been shamed by the shameful history of their town into more childish pursuits than hunting witches. They also do a good line in witch souvenir shops, see, for example, http://www.witchwaygifts.com/. Silly, and perhaps tasteless given what happened, but relatively harmless. I also came across the Danvers State Hospital which looked very like one of our old mental asylums - and was equally closed up and awaiting development.

I also went to see what they could do at http://www.dp.la/ and they came up with a splendid history of the whole business by one Reverend Zachariah Atwell Mudge, called 'Witch Hill : a history of Salem witchcraft, including illustrative sketches of persons and places' and published in 1870. There is a good quality facsimile online which lets you download good quality copies of individual pages should you be so inclined. Alternatively, there are lots of postcards of something called 'Witch House'. The Digital Public Library of America does the business again.