Fünf Sterne von Michael Billington vom Guardian!!! Bin völlig hin und weg!
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The Crucible review – full of raw, visceral power
Old Vic, London
Yaël Farber's extraordinary production of Arthur Miller's tale of the Salem witch hunt retains its disturbing relevance today
5 out of 5



Michael Billington

The Guardian, Friday 4 July 2014 11.44 BST

Richard Armitage in The Crucible at the Old Vic
Muscularity and guilt … Richard Armitage in The Crucible at the Old Vic. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

Productions of Arthur Miller's re-creation of the Salem witch hunt tend to be as flinty and hard-edged as the author's prose. But the South African Yaël Farber, director of an acclaimed Mies Julie, has come up with an extraordinary production that preserves the integrity of Miller's language while investing the action with a raw, visceral power I've never witnessed.

You sense from the dark, dreamlike opening that this is a community on the edge of disintegration. Panic and fear pervade the first-act set in Reverend Parris's bedroom. Neighbours accusingly eyeball each other, the 17-year-old Abigail grapples tenaciously on the ground with her ex-lover, John Proctor, and we realise that the upright Mrs Putnam has used the Barbadian Tituba to commune with the dead.

Everything that subsequently happens develops from this initial mood of frenzied suspicion. In the scenes between Proctor and his wife, the air is thick with recrimination and, when it comes to the courtroom, all hell is let loose: Samantha Colley's remarkable Abigail, having been brutally discarded by Proctor, exhibits the strength of her will by orchestrating the stony-eyed obedience of her acolytes with blood-chilling power.

Not even Farber can disguise the rhetorical melodrama of the final act. But everything about this production is of a piece, from the distressed walls of Soutra Gilmour's set – clearly derived from Paris's Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord – to the subliminal creepiness of Richard Hammarton's music and sound. Richard Armitage, though sounding a bit vocally strained, admirably conveys Proctor's mix of muscularity and guilt and Anna Madeley is excellent as his quietly accusatory wife. There is strong support from Jack Ellis as a ferocious, ramrod-backed judge, Adrian Schiller as an ultimately penitent cleric, along with Rebecca Saire and Ann Firbank as the respective embodiments of superstition and sanity in a ravaged community. It's tremendous production of a play that, in Proctor's cry "Is the accuser always holy now?", retains its disturbing relevance.

• Until 13 September. Box office: 0844 871 7628. Venue: Old Vic theatre, London

Bitte sehr:

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/j ... vic-london

Mark Shenton für londontheatre.co.uk vergibt 4 Sterne



http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londonth ... ible14.htm

Danke, Juvenilia! Ich hoffe, es ist o.k., wenn ich Text und Link für alle Neugierigen gleich mal nachtrage?



http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jul/04/the-crucible-review-old-vic-london

@Nietzsche: Zwei well-wisherinnen, ein Gedanke.

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July 4, 2014 12:27 pm
The Crucible, Old Vic, London – review

By Sarah Hemming
Yaël Farber’s staging and some superb performances unleash this brilliant play’s harrowing power


In a production of stunning intensity it’s the quiet moments that get you most. Into the middle of a raging argument in the Proctors’ kitchen come two silent, shell-shocked old men: their wives have been charged with witchcraft. We’ve met one of them earlier in the play – Rebecca Nurse, a kindly old woman of consummate wisdom; we, like the characters, realise this is the point of no return. It’s a moment of sickening terror, handled beautifully by the cast in Yaël Farber’s magnificent staging.

Arthur Miller’s haunting masterpiece about the Salem witch hunts is sadly never out of date. Written in response to the McCarthyite hysteria in 1950s America, it serves as a timeless warning about the power of paranoia. Farber, wisely, leaves it in its context: a hardworking, God-fearing, rural 17th-century community (only the accents shift, to northern England). Staged, simply, in the round, the play fuses the particular with the parable. Clothes are durable and monochrome; furniture is simple and sparse; interiors are intimate and domestic. There is, significantly, nothing special about this place. A teenage girl fakes a faint to avoid awkward questions about dancing in the woods; her father, a preacher given to hellfire sermons, mentions witchcraft; her friend, sharp, scheming Abigail (played with sullen spite by Samantha Colley), spots an opportunity to play with fire – and we’re off. Soon neighbour is trading neighbour as witch: it’s sell, or be sold.

Miller’s genius is to show the way personal grief, guilt or greed feed into hysteria. His agent on stage is John Proctor, a decent man, who, riven with guilt over his brief affair with Abigail, knows her well enough to spot her intentions. Richard Armitage’s Proctor is a gruff, bearlike individual, tormented by his slip from grace and movingly matched by Anna Madeley as his wife, frozen in hurt. Their personal journey towards mutual forgiveness pulls against the gathering darkness elsewhere and proves very moving here.

In a fine ensemble, there are some superb performances: Adrian Schiller as the minister who gradually realises the horror he has unleashed; Jack Ellis as the fanatical judge who would rather hang more innocent people than admit a mistake; Ann Firbank as the quietly sane Rebecca Nurse.

There are flaws that hold the staging back. Farber gilds the lily, adding unnecessary wordless passages and hitting overdrive in places: sometimes quiet threats are more potent than roaring. But she and her cast release the harrowing power of this brilliant play.

Richard Armitage is stunning in terrifying adaptation of The Crucible: Review
By Daniel Sperling
Friday, Jul 4 2014, 12:18 BST

During the climatic moments of The Crucible at the Old Vic last night (July 3), an audience member committed the cardinal theatre sin of not turning their phone on silent, allowing a cocophony of chirps to ring out. Irritating, of course, but oddly in this case it was an almost reassuring reminder that there was a world outside this insane one we'd been in for almost four hours.

Staged in the round with minimal scenery, and with ingenious use of lighting, sound, smells and swilling dust manipulating all the senses, The Crucible totally sucks you in and makes you experience the fear that fuelled the Salem witch trials in the 1600s.

The outstanding cast totally give themselves to playwright Arthur Miller's text, appearing genuinely maddened, furious and frightened as their alter egos desperately try to rid themselves of a wicked that they have conjured. The ensemble surrender their bodies too, contorting themselves into hideously violent shapes when 'possessed' and never bracing as they are slammed across the stage by others.

Of the cast, the biggest draw to non-theatregoers is The Hobbit, Spooks and Strike Back actor Richard Armitage, who plays John Proctor, a good, but fallible man with a level head in a time of madness.

For John, Armitage makes his voice subterranean and uses it, all of it (flecks of saliva shoot across the stage) to defend himself, ultimately to no avail.

Physically, John is an imposing presence, but he is gradually chipped away at and broken down. Armitage makes him appear constantly exhausted by the accusations thrown at him and the people around him, even before he gets dragged into the trials.

Eventually his body is weakened too, and when John makes a reappearance in The Crucible's dying moments, the change is striking. It's a triumph in make-up, costume and performance on Armitage's part that the sight of him makes you feel pained.

But it is here, when John is at his most feeble that he finally finds strength. His last stand is incredibly rousing, and cements just how good Armitage is at appearing inwardly bold when hunched or brittle when tall.

Other standout cast members include newcomer Samantha Colley, terrifically unsettling as poisionous accuser Abigail Williams, and William Gaunt as farmer Giles Corey, a sweet, sheepdog of a man who starts off as the comic relief and then breaks your heart.

Aside from the bumbling bits of dialogue provided by Giles, there are a few more moments of black comedy in The Crucible when you find yourself having to scoff at the absurdity of the trials. However, for the most part, the play is a tragedy, with some characters finding themselves powerless to fight hysteria and others being corroded by doubt and remorse. It's heavy-going, but thrilling.

You really feel the desperation of the time and, like the characters, you will not be able to unknot yourself for the entirety of its mammoth run. Quite simply, The Crucible gets a stranglehold on your nerves and doesn't let go.

Na, auf diese Überschrift hatten wir doch alle gewartet, oder?
Danke!

The Crucible
Reporter: Matthew Amer, first published Fri 04 Jul 2014 11:29

Richard Armitage stars in The Crucible, playing at the Old Vic (Photo: Johan Persson)Richard Armitage stars in The Crucible (Photo: Johan Persson)

What’s it all about?

Some might say witches, some might say McCarthyism. I’ll say Arthur Miller’s tragic portrayal of a community consumed by hysteria when claims of witchcraft are hurled like psychological hand-grenades by a group of malicious minors.

Who’s in it?

Richard Armitage, better known for his screen work in Spooks and The Hobbit these days than for his stage past, returns to board treading, leading the cast as John Proctor, a man whose previous extra-marital dalliance lies at the heart of the community’s sudden black magic epidemic.

His Proctor is an imposing, prowling, growling figure with more rough edges than an Elizabethan neck-piece maker. Paradoxically brimming with pride and power while haunted by shame and remorse, he is constantly balancing on a tipping point, ready to explode with fury or collapse under the pressure of his principles.

Adrian Schiller brings a disconcertingly calm air of sense and reliability to Reverend Hale, the churchman called in to unearth Salem’s witches.

In her professional stage debut, Samantha Colley imbues ringleader Abigail Williams with layer upon layer of anger and hatred, giving this most dislikeable of characters an impudent swagger and air of untouchability that normally only comes with mob bosses… or teenagers.
What should I watch out for?

Director Yaël Farber’s dark and richly atmospheric scene changes and beginnings. This is a long production – three and a half hours – and these wordless episodes add to the running time, but I would not remove a second, such are their beauty and impact.

The striking lighting design by 2014 Olivier Award winner Tim Lutkin that creates the shadows and haunted spaces in which Miller’s drama can unfold.

The synchronised movements, frozen eyes and hideous contortion of the show’s witch-crying girls, which comes straight out of The Shining or Village Of The Damned.
In a nutshell?

Armitage proves a colossal presence at the heart of a chillingly atmospheric revival of Miller’s classic.
Who was in the press night crowd?

A few guardians of Middle Earth were out in support of their The Hobbit colleague Armitage; Orlando Bloom and Sir Ian McKellen. Stage stars Roger Allam, Fiona Shaw, Haydn Gwynne, Niamh Cusack and Sherlock’s Andrew Scott were also out in force for the in-the-round production.

What’s being said on Twitter?

If you have time to see 1 play this season, see it.

Will I like it?

Like is a tough word to use for this play that sees an entire town taken in by the antics of children and a man who, despite his wrongs, is good at heart forced to put his principles on the line. With darkness never far away, both figuratively and in reality, at times you’re desperate to shake some sense into people, while at others you simply want to sit back and marvel at the beauty of the production’s design. But it is never far from exhilarating, barely lets you take a relaxed breath and three and a half hours have rarely charged by so swiftly.