It’s a testament to the subtle brilliance of Kimberly Belflower’s writing and Danya Tamor’s direction that you could hardly feel the 105-minute, no-intermission runtime of John Proctor Is the Villain.
The play, now on Broadway, follows a gaggle of junior girls at Helen County High, a small school in northeast Georgia, who start a feminist club at the peak of the #MeToo movement. At first, their plans are almost thwarted by anonymously concerned community members who worry the group will alienate boys. The women insist that their male peers can, and in reality should, change into members. “If we were in a position to foster a meaningful dialogue with them, we could find common ground,” intones Beth (a powerful Fina Strazza), the high-strung but well-meaning one among the crew. “That’s like, the entire purpose of this club, that’s why it’s so necessary.”
Lucky for these teens, their beloved English teacher, Mr. Smith (Gabriel Ebert), stumbles upon the heated confrontation and cuts a take care of guidance counselor Miss Gallagher (Molly Griggs): If he signs on as faculty advisor and the ladies tie their class reading — Arthur Miller’s The Crucible — into their agenda, then the organization proposal will probably be approved. The women enthusiastically comply with these terms. They don’t even care that Mason (a winning Nihar Duvvuri), a junior boy failing English class, has to hitch the club for extra credit. It’s 2018, and the onslaught of reports about accused men and their survivors have left the kids in search of a secure space to tackle big questions and confusing feelings.
But the ladies do not know just how necessary the feminist club will change into over the course of the spring semester, as a series of distressing events threaten to upend their lives. The drama starts with the return of Shelby Holcomb (Sadie Sink), a member of this friend group who abruptly left school for 3 months after sleeping together with her best friend’s boyfriend. Nobody knows where she went, however the rumor mill whirs as soon as she steps foot on campus. Raelynn (a superb Amalia Yoo), the reserved daughter of a preacher, isn’t sure how you can process her former friend coming back to high school; she’s still offended with Shelby for having sex with Lee (an appropriately slimy Hagan Oliveras).
Meanwhile, Ivy Watkins (Maggie Kuntz), one other friend within the group, wrestles with news that her father has been accused of sexual harassment by one among his employees. The case grips and divides residents of this one-stoplight town, including members of the feminist club.
Within the background of this interpersonal drama, the ladies, whose friend group includes recent transfer Nell (Morgan Scott, with sharp comedic timing), read The Crucible and prepare for his or her final projects, wherein they need to put two characters who never share a scene in conversation with each other. As the ladies read more of Miller’s play, they start to query why John Proctor, a reputation-obsessed man who arguably ruined not only his wife Elizabeth’s life but Abigail’s as well, is so revered. Their re-examination of the play in regards to the Salem witch trials becomes a way through which they’ll higher understand their very own realities.
A familiarity with Miller’s work, which the playwright wrote as a response to McCarthyism, just isn’t a requirement for John Proctor Is the Villain. In organizing her mess around an English class, Belflower incorporates any needed plot points into Mr. Smith’s lessons and discussions between the scholars.
John Proctor Is the Villain was first produced at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., where Marti Lyons directed, but Taymor, who won a Tony last 12 months for guiding The Outsiders, assumes the reins of this version. Her direction is nimble without losing sight of the play’s striking emotional core. She works with Amp, with whom she collaborated on The Outsiders, and Teresa L. Williams to strengthen the play’s intimacy through a vivid and detailed set. All of the motion in John Proctor Is the Villain takes place in Mr. Smith’s classroom, which is decorated with Georgia Bulldogs ephemera, a couch for college students to sit down on and stare out the window, and motivational posters. One wall boasts an inventory of the state’s most famous authors along with helpful suggestions for good writing. The metal desks, plastic chairs and linoleum tiles resemble those in public schools across the country.
The conversations between the ladies are a sprightly dance of topics, from school gossip and native affairs to popular culture and personal fears. They speak on the speed of an online scroll, yet that swiftness doesn’t subtract from the profundity. As a substitute, it makes room for revelations — about their discomforts, their preferences and their desires. An endearing intimacy is fostered and the stakes of those relationships are heightened.
Many theatergoers will probably be drawn to John Proctor Is the Villain by Sink, who made her breakthrough in Stranger Things and most recently starred in Searchlight’s musical drama O’Dessa. While the actress holds her own, channeling her character’s mix of stripling angst and deeper emotional woundedness, her performance is buoyed by those of the ladies round her.
When Shelby awkwardly bursts into Mr. Smith’s classroom on her first day back at college, the audience has already been prepared for her arrival. After the charged encounter with Miss Gallagher, Ivy, Nell, Beth and Raelynn start planning their first feminist club meeting. A discussion of Twilight (which Raelynn loves) and Taylor Swift (whom Beth is obsessive about) devolves right into a gossip session where the opposite girls catch Nell up on the drama. Raelynn’s shy deflections change into sharper because the questions on where she stands with Lee turn into ones about her relationship with Shelby. In these early moments, Yoo brings her character’s fragility to the surface with doleful expressions and a withering physicality, which makes the confident transformation she eventually undergoes all of the more satisfying to observe.
And that’s true for all the ladies in John Proctor Is the Villain, for at its core Belflower has constructed a poignant story of girlhood and empowering friendships. As Shelby adjusts to the brand new semester, she reconnects together with her friends, especially Raelynn, and shares more information in regards to the real reason why she left school. There are some moments that slacken here, especially as Belflower works her option to the twist, but with no intermission, the play’s frenzied pace continues uninterrupted and helps the inevitable revelation land with an actual shock. (The audience audibly gasped once I saw the show.)
It’s fitting that John Proctor Is the Villain is running similtaneously All Nighter (off-Broadway) and shortly after Nina (off off-Broadway), two shows that concern the inside lives and intimate conversations of young women. Similarly to those plays, John Proctor Is the Villain takes the concerns of its characters seriously. The women dissect Taylor Swift and Lorde’s lyrics (the 2 musicians are crucial on this production) with the identical intensity and a spotlight to detail as they bring about to The Crucible. It’s due to these popular culture icons, whose music so squarely centers the emotional textures of growing up, that these teenagers seek for the ladies in Miller’s text and might even begin to query why anyone ever thought John Proctor was a hero.
Venue: Booth Theatre, Latest York
Solid: Sadie Sink, Nihar Duvvuri, Gabriel Ebert, Molly Griggs, Maggie Juntz, Hagan Oliveras, Morgan Scott, Fina Strazza, Amalia Yoo
Director: Danya Taymor
Playwrights: Kimberly Belflower
Set designer: Amp ft. Teresa L. Williams
Costume designer: Sarah Laux
Lighting designer: Natasha Katz
Sound designer: Palmer Heffernan
Projection designer: Hannah Wasileski
Movement: Tilly Evans-Krueger
Presented by Sue Wagner, John Johnson, John Mara Jr., Runyonland, Eric Falkstein, Jillian Robbins, Jen Hoguet, Rialto Productions, Corets Gough Kench Cohen, The Shubert Organization, James L. Nederlander, John Gore Organization, Patty Baker, Cue to Cue Productions, Echo Lake Entertainment, Harris Rubin Productions, Klausner & Zell, Jennifer Kroman, Mickey Liddell & Pete Shilaimon, Mahnster Productions, Nathan Winoto, The Cohn Sisters & Stifelman-Burkhardt, Astro Lab Productions, Creative Partners Productions, Sarah Daniels, Joan Rechnitz, Melissa Chamberlain & Michael McCartney, Pam Hurst-Della Pietra & Steven Della Pietra, Newport & Smerigan, Jamie deRoy, Jaime Gleicher, Wes Grantom, Meena Harris & Jessica Foung, LAMF, Corey Steinfast, Turchin Clements, Louis Hobson, Annaleise Loxton
