The Crucible
★★★★★ Visceral
Festival Theatre: Thurs 1 – Sat 3 May 2025
Review by Rebecca Mahar
Scottish Ballet’s revival of its 2019 production of The Crucible haunts the Festival Theatre with visceral intensity, translating its tale of 17th century American witch trials through the sharp storytelling of Helen Pickett’s contemporary ballet.
This is an adaptation of Arthur Miller’s 1953 play, a direct allegory for the political “witch hunts” by the House Un-American Activities Committee which questioned and persecuted many, including Miller, in the entertainment industry. Miller’s publication of such an allegory was an active and personally dangerous rejection of HUAC’s sweeping accusations.
Kayla-Maree Tarantolo as Abigail in The Crucible. Pic: Rimbaud Patron
The ballet distils Miller’s story down to its essentials. Despite halving the running time it still hits all the major plot points, expressed through the cohesive union of dance, music, and lighting.
With a tumultuous and tender score by Peter Salem, Pickett refocuses – as much as is possible – on “womanhood, witchcraft, and the affair that marked the Proctors’ lives” while still imagining John Proctor as a protagonist.
Pickett wisely chooses to start the ballet with events that occur before Miller’s script begins. Abigail Williams (Kayla-Maree Tarantolo) plays with a dollhouse, then finds herself in the employ of the Proctors, John (Bruno Micchiardi) and Elizabeth (Jessica Fyfe).
captivating
Elizabeth, unwell after the birth of a child, pushes John away. After a captivating solo from Tarantolo that firmly casts seventeen-year-old Abigail as the seductress in this situation, Abigail and John begin an affair.
Bruno Micchiardi as John Proctor and Kayla-Maree Tarantolo as Abigail in The Crucible. Pic: Rimbaud Patron
Elizabeth’s inevitable discovery of the affair and ejection of Abigail from the household is the catch-fire of the story: Abigail and her friends follow the enslaved woman Tituba (Xolisweh Richards) into the forest, attempt to persuade her to curse Elizabeth, before whipping themselves up into a wild frenzy of naked dancing. After they are caught, they begin to accuse Tituba and other adult women of Salem of witchcraft— which is where Miller’s play begins.
These introductory scenes give life to crucial moments only alluded to in the play, and deepen the characters of Abigail and Tituba. Seventeen your old Abigail is clearly positioned as the instigator of the affair, but Pickett’s choreography and Tarantolo’s versatile performance also manage to communicate her youth, naïveté, and the power of a lie getting out of control.
sympathetic
This production’s John Proctor is as sympathetic as the character can be, his conflict ringing through Micchiardi’s eloquent physical expression. Some of the most powerful moments in the performance come when Micchiardi and Fyfe meet following the revelation of the affair, each dancing alone before joining together in a poignant duet leading to reconciliation.
Benjamin Thomas in Scottish Ballet’s The Crucible. Pic: Andy Ross
Similarly, at the end of the piece as John contemplates his fate and Elizabeth slips through his arms like a ghost, it’s difficult to imagine that they are both flesh and blood, rather than phantoms in the darkened jail.
The design of The Crucible is exceptional, despite a few technical missteps —the use of a sound effect of clanking chains when captives are clearly bound with something soft, the distracting flickering around the edges of a pool of light during the duet leading to John and Elizabeth’s reconciliation. David Finn’s lighting design is simple and stark, shaping the world of the ballet in the real and unreal, and working with a brave heaviness of shadow.
superbly integrated
The set, co-designed by Emma Kingsbury and Finn, is superbly integrated with the lighting, its most prominent feature a large wall with central gaps in the shape of a cross. This raises, lowers, and tilts at different times in the play to represent various locations, and to allow the light that passes through its cruciform opening to follow, swallow, or abandon the characters below.
Scottish Ballet’s The Crucible. Pic: Andy Ross
The Crucible is a fresh retelling of an old story, and an exemplary demonstration of the power of ballet as a storytelling medium; a showcase of the boundary-crushing potential of contemporary, narrative ballet and Pickett’s vision.
Running time: One hour and 45 minutes (including one interval)
Festival Theatre, 13/29 Nicolson Street EH8 9FT. Phone booking: 0131 529 6000.
Thurs 1 – Sat 3 May 2025
Evenings: 7.30pm; Sat mat: 2.30pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Theatre Royal Glasgow, 282 Hope St, Glasgow G2 3QA
Thurs 22 – Sat 24 May 2025
Evenings: 7.30pm; Sat mat: 2.30pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Accessible performances: the 2:30pm performances on 3 May will be audio described and have a touch tour before the show.
Jessica Fyfe (Centre) as Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible. Pic: Rimbaud Patron.
ENDS
