The Crucible

I enjoy being a Noda rep as it allows me the opportunity to see many shows that I haven’t seen before.  However, sometimes, those shows are so iconic, I find it slightly embarrassing that I have never seen them before!  I’m ashamed to say that “The Crucible” is one of those shows and not only had I never seen it before, bizarrely, I didn’t really even know what it was about.  Shocking I know, so it was with some excitement I was looking forward to seeing Sidmouth Amateur Dramatic Society’s production.

As I was covering for Tricia Barclay, I had never actually visited The Manor Pavillion Theatre before and it was a great pleasure to finally get to see inside it.  What a lovely little theatre and a perfect location for the play in question.

The curtains were already opened as the audience entered the auditorium, I am a big fan of this practice as it allows the audience to get a good luck at the stage before the action starts.  The stage was very simple but, looked effective and was used in a very clever way, making scene changes minimal and, those that were there, quick to achieve.  I was particularly impressed with the simple effect used to create the two cells at the sides of the stage and the hay on the floor was a lovely touch that added to the authentic feel.  Well done to Barry Lister, Stan Hodge, John Dixon and Brian Eves for their sterling work.  The use of the music and the low lighting as the audience entered the auditorium created an atmosphere that set the tone for the audience, before the show had even began.

With such a simplistic set, most of the staging was achieved through the use of the lighting.  This was managed very well by Tony Hill with no obvious issues apparent, particularly effective was using the lighting to add the shadows of bars in the cell scenes.  The sound was good, however it is not clear if this was achieved through the use of microphones or not, as none were obvious.  However, either way the sound was clear and diction, throughout, was very good.

The costumes and wigs by Bath Theatrical, Derek Easton Wigs and Audrey Harcourt were all great and fitted the production perfectly.  Especially impressive were the outfits for the judge and his team. 

All the actors were well cast and everyone seemed to fit their roles well, especially impressive were Richard Pulman (as John Proctor), Tanya Rees (as Elizabeth Proctor), Charlotte Hadfield (as Abigail Williams) and Emily Hadfield (as Mary Warren) who were all very engaging in their roles, especially Richard who managed to put so much emotion into his character that he must have been completely emotionally drained by Saturday evening. 

I would agree with the comment, in your programme, that “the future of drama in Sidmouth is bright” and would like to congratulate all your young ladies who really did a sterling job of performing and portraying emotions with a maturity beyond their years. 

I know the night I came there were a couple of prompts but it was impressive to see that the vast majority of lines were remembered, very commendable with such a wordy play however, on several occasions, it did seem like the lines were just being recited with very little emotion added in.  Also, I was a little confused by the action at the beginning when Betty Parris was “in a stupor”.  I felt that Eleanor Benattar did a very fine job of portraying the young girl but she kept moving, opening and shutting her eyes and having a drink of water, I heard from another audience member from a different night, that the same happened then and we wondered if this was a directorial decision to show that Betty was acting, however, it wasn’t very clear.

On the night I came, Barry Lister had to step into the Judge’s role, due to ill health, I felt that Barry did a great job under the circumstances and, as the director, he obviously had a strong understanding of what he wanted to see on the stage as his characterisation just fitted the character so well, it was as if he had been rehearsing for months.  The only negative thing was that he clearly had the photocopied script in his hand for nearly the entire time he was on stage, don’t get me wrong no-one would expect him to be word perfect but it did seem strange that no effort was made to hide the script in a ledger or a book, for example.

Overall, I enjoyed my first watching of “The Crucible” and felt that, as a whole, you managed to do a decent job of bringing this hard going and, ultimately, depressing story to the stage.  Clearly there were some problems with the odd prompt and some of the emotional impact of the lines could have done with a little polish but, bearing in mind the amount of lines you had to learn and the fact that you had lost one of your main actors prior to the production, I felt that you did well.  I am sorry that your audience numbers were on the low side for this production, it does seem to be harder to get bums on seats lately and I have much respect for you for putting on a harder sell highbrow production, rather than putting on something just for the sake of filling the auditorium.

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