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Waikato Times
August 13, 2001
Reviewed by: Hilary Falconer
The Crucible is a dark, wordy,
long and dramatic play. It's therefore impressive that Waikato University
Theatre Performance III students gave such an enjoyable performance.
Although they imported a couple of
graduate students with more experience, it was commitment from the student
actors that provided the passion.
The link with McCarthyism is a little too removed to be relevant for our
audiences- this a played for what it is - a wonderfully written love story
surrounded by the frightening idiocy of judiciary and mass hysteria.
Scenes with Elliot Steenson as
John Proctor and Aimie Cronin as Elizabeth Proctor are some of the more
moving I've seen on any Hamilton
stage. Tightly directed, the play has a wonderful stillness which gives the
words great power. Performance in the round pays off as we feel let into
these people's tiny world which is being ripped apart.
Paranoia and menace are potent elements from the start, with Robert Moore's
edgy Reverend Parris. Kate Monro as Abigail and Kellie Burke as Mary Warren
played their parts with believable emotion. All the actors had excellent
control, which created a tense, absorbing production.
They brought out some of the black
humour in some scenes and created a tangible atmosphere of dread at the
climax of the courtroom scene.
Powerful performances, particularly by Steenson as a flawed but honest man,
give a contemporary relevance to the themes of injustice and faith. I give
them an A
Comment
by www.peterellis.co.nz
Of particular interest about the
production of the play is the advertisement for the play, reproduced below
from http://www.kram.orcon.net.nz/main.html:
The advertisement clearly shows that the “Peter Ellis experience” is widely understood
to be an experience of injustice, in the same way that Salem
1692, and the McCarthy hearings in America are also now considered.
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