The Topanga hills prove the ideal setting for Theatricum Botanicum’s gut-punchingly powerful revival of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the first of the six Crucibles I’ve seen to get everything right.

 The year is 1692, the place is Salem, Massachusetts, and ten-year-old Betty Parris (Gabbi Beauvais) lies nearly comatose to the dismay of her father Reverend Samuel Parris (Mark Lewis), whose concern over his daughter’s well-being is multiplied upon discovering that she and several other local girls were out last night committing the sin of dancing in the moonlight under the ringleadership of teen temptress Abigail Williams (Bethany Koulias), recently dismissed from her job tending house for John and Elizabeth Proctor (Christopher W. Jones and Willow Geer) for reasons known only to Elizabeth and her philandering spouse.

When accusations of witchcraft bring sorcery-savvy Reverend John Hale (Frank Weidner) to Salem, Abby decides to take revenge on her ex-lover by accusing Elizabeth of doing the devil’s work … and the witch-hunt is on.

 Written at the height of the McCarthy hearings, The Crucible rings truer than ever sixty-five years after its Broadway debut in world where the willfully ignorant hold power, so-called Christians spout hate, and facts have been redubbed “fake news.”

Arthur Miller’s brilliance as a playwright has never been more evident than in this enduring masterwork, particularly with blacklist victim Will Geer’s daughter Ellen doing inspired work in the director’s chair.

Taking full advantage of Theatricum Botanicum’s expansive playing area, Geer’s opening sequence has local churchgoers praying stageside for Betty Parris as elsewhere her father keeps bedside watch. A scene in which Abigail and her girls go wild in court works particularly well with extra space available for their hysteria. And the play’s closing sequence plays out with gut-wrenching power with townsfolk gathering outdoors to await the latest public hanging as centerstage one man’s life hangs in the balance.

 In one of the year’s richest and most powerful performances, the burly, bearded, and refreshingly young-cast Jones gives us a John Proctor virile enough to succumb to sexual temptation, man enough to realize the error of his ways, and heroic enough to defend the one thing no one dare take from him.

Leading lady Geer adds Elizabeth Proctor to her long list of star turns, vanishing into the skin of a woman who counted herself “so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to me” before rising to her own heroic heights.

A fiery Koulias makes Abigail more mean girl than vixen, Kate Adams’s standout Mary Warren first finds, then loses the strength to fight back, and Jessamyn Arnstein, Beauvais, Holly Hawk, Caitlin Kilgore, Brandi Lynn Reinhard, and Laura Zenoni provide appropriately distraught support as Abby and Mary’s fellow accusers.

 Weidner does his finest work to date as a man whose journey towards enlightenment gives The Crucible its few rays of hope as Lewis’s Reverend Parris snivels, pouts, and rages and Franc Ross’s Deputy Governor John Danforth and Lawrence Sonderling’s John Hawthorne sit in judgment incapable of admitting they are wrong, all three Botanicum regulars performing to hiss-worthy effect.

 The Crucible’s all-around superb ensemble is completed by Tavis L. Baker (Cheever), Thad Geer (Giles Corey), Elizabeth George (Sarah Good), Cindy Guastaferro (Ann Putnam), Tim Halligan (Thomas Putnam), Ethan Haslam (Herrick), Melora Marshall (Rebecca Nurse), Gabriel Anthony Palma (Hopkins), Jacquelin Schofield (Tituba), and David Stifel (Francis Nurse), all of whom do memorably delineated work.

Production stills shot in daylight provide no way of appreciating the beauty of Skylar Johnson’s lighting design, and they only begin to suggest how visually captivating this production is, especially during full-cast sequences.

 Costume designer Amy Mazzaferro merits top marks for her homespun collection of late-17th-century outfits and Sydney Russell for her equally fine period properties, with sound designer Marshall McDaniel’s original music adding dramatic force throughout.

Jackie Nicole Anglin is assistant director, Kim Cameron is stage manager, and Caitlyn Ryan is assistant stage manager.

The Crucible may have been written as an allegory for the anti-Communist hysteria pervading the nation in the early 1950s, but recent national events have made it more relevant than ever. Theatricum Botanicum gives the Arthur Miller classic the pitch-perfect production it deserves.

The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga.
www.theatricum.com

–Steven Stanley
August 12, 2018
Photos: Ian Flanders

Tags: Ellen Geer, Los Angeles Theater Review, Theatricum Botanicum