HEATER REVIEW: ‘THE WITCH OF EDMONTON’
Black-Magic Woman
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: February 4, 2011
That dog is the very Devil. No, seriously. That shaggy black mongrel is Satan incarnate, and he wants to buy your soul. Kind of cute, though, isn’t he, the way he perks up at the least sign of affection? You don’t know whether to scratch his belly or make the sign of the cross.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Derek Smith, left, as Dog, and Charlayne Woodard as Elizabeth Sawyer in “The Witch of Edmonton,” a Jacobean drama at Theater at St. Clement’s.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Clockwise from top, Derek Smith, in the shadows, Justin Blanchard and Christina Pumariega in a scene from the Red Bull Theater Company’s production of “The Witch of Edmonton.”
Shakespeare’s Hamlet observed that “the Devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.” But he probably didn’t envision the scruffy canine form adopted by Mephistopheles in “The Witch of Edmonton,” a fascinating and seldom-seen Jacobean drama, which has been given a sturdy, insightful production by the resourceful Red Bull Theater company.
As inventively embodied by Derek Smith — who wears a jaunty highwayman’s hat with a snarling face hidden in its folds and uses a pair of sticks for front legs — the character bluntly called Dog is both really creepy and sort of endearing. You can see why a lonely, demented old woman and a simple-minded lad would take pleasure in his company and feel bereft without it.
Though it deals with the supernatural, natural human urges are at the forefront of “The Witch of Edmonton,” which opened on Thursday night at Theater at St. Clement’s. A collaboration among (at least) Thomas Dekker, John Ford and William Rowley, this 1621 workmay have the bloodstains and body count of a typical revenge tragedy.
But inspired by real events of the recent past in an English village, the play is homier and humbler than the usual Jacobean fare. There are no arrogant duchesses or swaggering, poison-wielding princes in Edmonton. The people who commit the play’s central crimes are of the everyday variety. And though Dog is around to whisper dark motivating words into their ears, it is intriguingly open to debate as to whether the Devil really made them do it.
Since its establishment in 2003, the Red Bull Theater has specialized in Elizabethan-Jacobean potboilers that New Yorkers rarely get a chance to see these days, including “The Revenger’s Tragedy” and “Women Beware Women.” But “Witch” — staged by Jesse Berger, the company’s artistic director — is of an even rarer stripe than usual.
Though the acting in this interpretation is variable, the play still emerges vividly as a singular blend of psychological realism, naturalistic detail and lurid, black-magic-shadowed sensationalism. A multilevel tale related with few of the flourishes of fancy poetry, “Witch” has the magnetic pull of a broadsheet ballad of murderous love.
The play follows two main stories, which are only tangentially linked: that of Frank Thorney (Justin Blanchard), an irresolute young man who finds himself inconveniently married to two women, and that of Elizabeth Sawyer (Charlayne Woodard), the title character, a ragged and desolate woman who is scorned as a witch by the people of Edmonton well before she becomes one.
It is Elizabeth who summons the Devil Dog into being, after which the sly cur attaches himself to Cuddy Banks (Adam Green), a simpleton. Dog is also on hand when Frank plants a knife in the breast of the doting Susan (Christina Pumariega), his second bride, so he can be with Winifred (Miriam Silverman), a pregnant serving girl whom he married previously.
I know this all sounds a shade byzantine. (Did I mention that Winifred is disguised as a man and was previously the lover of a foppish knight, portrayed with relish by Christopher Innvar?) But twists of story line are remarkably easy to follow in Mr. Berger’s version, which eliminates a festive subplot involving Morris dancers to focus on matters of the heart.
Mr. Berger elucidates the play’s suggestion that hearts are often divided, and that a devil’s easiest mark is an ambivalent soul. We are always aware of a tantalizing ambiguity as to why these people commit the crimes they do. And in the case of Elizabeth, we’re not entirely sure what crimes she is responsible for, or the extent to which the townspeople turn her into the vengeful harpy she becomes. Guilt, it seems, is a gray zone in Edmonton.
The production has been handsomely designed, with period costumes by Cait O’Connor, evoking the time in which it takes place without being overly literal. Anka Lupes’s stark, subtly symbolic set borders a gaping pit of dirt with a wooden walkway and two houselike frames on either end. Civilized folk mostly stick to the walkway, but you’re aware that one slip of the foot, and they could be in the dirt, where Elizabeth and Dog spend most of their time.
Though the production features two grisly executions and several bloody apparitions, it is strongest in its more prosaic moments, especially in the first half. Mr. Blanchard is very good at summoning Frank’s troubled passivity, if less convincing in the tragic heroics required at the end. Ms. Woodard portrays Elizabeth on a single note of angry, beleaguered dignity, but that note serves the play’s purposes.
Among the rest of the cast — which includes the familiar faces of Everett Quinton and André de Shields — I was particularly struck by Sam Tsoutsouvas, who, as the father of the murdered Susan, displays a grief that is a compound of shifting elements. Emotions are neither pure nor simple in this play.
Even the Devil, as Mr. Smith reminds us, has a human longing to be loved. On one perfectly entertaining level, “The Witch of Edmonton” is like a 17th-century edition of The National Enquirer. But its portrayal of startlingly mixed motives and responses adds a depth rarely found in tabloids.
The Witch of Edmonton
By Thomas Dekker, John Ford, William Rowley, etc.; directed by Jesse Berger; costumes by Cait O’Connor; sets by Anka Lupes; lighting by Peter West; music by Daniel Levy; sound by Elizabeth Rhodes; violence by Rick Sordelet; movement byTracy Bersley; projections by Dan Scully; voice and speech by Diego Daniel Pardo; hair and makeup by Erin Kennedy Lunsford; aerial effects by Paul Rubin; production stage manager, Damon Arrington; production supervisor, Production Core / James E. Cleveland; associate producer, Renee Blinkwolt. Presented by the Red Bull Theater, Mr. Berger, artistic director. At the Theater at St. Clement’s, 423 West 46th Street, Clinton; (212) 352-3101, redbulltheater.com. Through Feb. 20. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.
WITH: Craig Baldwin (Warbeck/Countryman), Justin Blanchard (Frank Thorney), Adam Green (Cuddy Banks), Christopher Innvar (Sir Arthur Clarington), Christopher McCann (Thorney), Carman Lacivita (Somerton/Countryman), Christina Pumariega (Susan), Amanda Quaid (Katherine), Everett Quinton (Old Ratcliffe/Anne Ratcliffe), André de Shields (Old Banks), Miriam Silverman (Winifred), Derek Smith (Dog), Raphael Nash Thompson (Justice), Sam Tsoutsouvas (Carter) and Charlayne Woodard (Elizabeth Sawyer).
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