The Crucible, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

3/5

The Crucible famously spans two eras, the Salem witch trials of 1692 being used as a political metaphor to address the anti-Communist paranoia whipped up in the US by Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s.

In this revival Colin Richmond’s set design goes a step further and overlays a third period, the modern day. While the women wear button-down Puritan clothes, a period electric cooker is found in a family kitchen and a mobile dangling over a child’s cot could have just been bought at the local Mothercare.

Such subtle touches of modernity mean that Arthur Miller’s classic play, which the Tories recently banned from the GCSE English reading list, is viewed through the prism of present-day religious fundamentalism. There are also uncomfortable echoes of Guantanamo Bay when Mary Warren (Verity Kirk), who unsuccessfully tries to expose the hoax, is questioned in a plastic chair in front of a microphone.

Set against these religious fears and threats to civil liberties, the placing of silent worshippers at the rear of the stage is a powerful reminder of the conflict between church and state.

Yet it’s a tension that’s almost wrong-footed in the opening scenes by the weak casting of Alan Williams as the Reverend Samuel Parris, whose ambiguous accent and stilted body language fail to convince as a man who’s just found his daughter in a comatose state.

There’s an equally unpersuasive performance by the coquettish Kate Phillips as Abigail Williams, who lacks the charisma to be ringleader to the girls’ hoax or the conviction to bring her personal vengeance to bear on John Proctor, the former employer with whom she had an affair.

As such there’s a lack of believable hysteria about the scenes when, writhing in their chairs and speaking in unison, the teenage girls become possessed,

Such disappointing performances could have critically undermined James Brining’s production but it’s redeemed by Martin Marquez’s Proctor and Susie Trayling as his virtuous wife Elizabeth. His guilt over his affair with Abigail is enacted as their children lie asleep upstairs — a reminder of the generational victims of the witch-hunt — while Elizabeth brings intimate personal salvation when she leads a rendition of the parlour song Hard Times Come Again No More.

There are strong performances too from the supporting cast, with Daniel Poyser capturing Reverend John Hale’s crisis of confidence over the legitimacy of the trial and Joseph Mydell making his mark as he presides over the trial as a formidable Deputy Governor Danforth.

Despite some shaky casting, the overall production certainly captures the power of collective madness.

Runs until October 25, box office: wyp.org.uk