3 Stars for Design, 4 Stars for Acting
This production of “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller at the Albuquerque Little Theatre is a great representation of one of the most poignant plays in history.
It is based on the Salem Witch Trials and was written by Miller during the McCarthy-Era witch hunts. It has a huge cast and a diorama-like design, all of which meshes together perfectly.
Well, okay, maybe too perfectly. The acting was beautiful, some of the best acting I’ve seen in a long time, but the design was so picturesque that it was distracting.
The Albuquerque Little Theatre has a proscenium stage, which basically means it looks like a picture frame. In this production, that aspect was played up so much it felt like I was actually looking in at a picture with a large, gaudy frame.
The costumes, though drab, for Abigail and the other young girls were perfect bright pastels. The daughters of farm workers in 1690 in Salem, Massachusetts wouldn’t have pretty pink and blue dresses without so much as a speck of dirt on them. Also, in the last scene of Act 2, the Proctor’s costumes were supposed to be tattered and torn, but in reality looked as if they had been painted with brown paint and cut with scissors.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Because “The Crucible” is so wordy and so dependent on the acting, the dramatic, and again, too-perfect lighting didn’t work as well as intended. This, paired with the creaky, raked wooden platforms, made it hard not to look at various parts of the scenery instead of focusing on the story at hand.
But enough nitpicking about the design of this production. Overall, this show was illuminating and spine-chilling. Paul Ford did a great job with staging and helping the actors achieve the arc of this classic drama.
The story flowed naturally and never seemed to feel forced, even with the actors that were frozen in tableaux in the background. Those actors seemed to be the “watchful eyes,” sitting on benches as the jury of a courtroom, achieving a metaphor that the entire town of Salem was on trial.
The acting is the one aspect of this production that is perfect and should be. Christina Duran is hauntingly charming as Abigail Williams and Crystal Kellogg is a wonderful Mary Warren.
Laura Marie Clagett as Mercy Lewis and Kimberly Liphardt as Susanna Wallcott are strategically in unison with Duran’s Abigail, especially in Act 2. Dave McDowell is a consequentially torn John Proctor. His relationships to Abigail, Mary Warren and his wife, Elizabeth Proctor, played by Sheila M. Devitt, are true and emotional.
Charles Fisher is the fair and just Reverend John Hale and Angela Littleton is the meek Tituba.
The Albuquerque Little Theatre’s production of “The Crucible” is an extraordinary production.
This play runs for two more weeks, March 14-16 and 20-23, Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $16 for adults, $13 for senior citizens and $11 for students. Call the box office for reservations or information at 242-4750.
