The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Renaissance Theatre Company at City Theatre, October 28 - November 13

Arthur Miller's play The Crucible deals with dark and frightening times. Though the setting is 1692 Salem, Massachusetts during the wide-ranging hunt for witches, this 1953 piece is equally an evocation of America's sudden dark fear of enemies in its midst. Just years earlier, in World War II the Soviet Union had been considered a valiant ally; with the division of Europe, the threat of the atom bomb and the populist hectoring of politicians such as Senator Joseph McCarthy, many American intellectuals, civil servants and diplomats found themselves targeted for "communist sympathies."

This was the context for The Crucible. It's a strong, at times poetic piece, but much of the play's power and lasting relevance comes from Miller's admonitory lesson about hysteria, prejudice and injustice. In an essay about the play written in 2000 when he was eighty-five, Arthur Miller commented,

The Crucible straddles two different worlds to make them one, but it is not history in the usual sense of the word, but a moral, political and psychological construct that floats on the fluid emotions of both eras. As a commercial entertainment the play failed [it opened in 1953]. To start with there was the title: nobody knew what a crucible was. Most of the critics, as sometimes does happen, never caught on to the play's ironical substructure, and the ones who did were nervous about validating a work that was so unkind to the same sanctified procedural principles as underlay the hunt for reds. . . . Several years after, a gang of young actors, setting up chairs in the ballroom of the McAlpin Hotel, fired up the audience, convinced the critics, and the play at last took off and soon found its place. There were cheering reviews but by then Senator McCarthy was dead. The public fever on whose heatwaves he had spread his wings had subsided.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Ongoing: The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Renaissance Theatre Company at City Theatre, October 22 - November 14

UPDATE: Feature by Sarah Pressley for the Daily Texan, October 21

Received directly:

The Renaissance Theatre Company and City Theatre present

THE CRUCIBLE

Arthur Miller’s classic tale of the American theatre

Directed by Stacey Glazer

with Brian Villalobos, Craig Kanne, Laura Ray, Gabriel Smith and B. Iden Payne winners Rachel McGinnis and Angela Loftus.

October 22 – November 14, Thursdays – Saturdays 8:00 p.m. and Sunday 5:30 p.m.

at The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd, Suite D, east corner of Airport Blvd and 38 ½ Street.

For reservations, call 512-524-2870 or contact info@citytheatreaustin.org.

Tickets $15 - $20. Front Row Reserved $25. Thursdays all seats $10. Group and student discounts. www.citytheatreaustin.org

The Renaissance Theatre Company, in cooperation with City Theatre, begins its 2010 – 2011 theatre season with Arthur Miller's American classic The Crucible. Based on the witch trials in Salem, the stage drama begins performances

Hell and heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretenses ripped away. God’s icy wind will blow.

The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s most performed play, was first produced in 1953 and won the Tony Award for Best Play later that year. Set in 1692, it uses the Salem witch hunts as an historical allegory for McCarthy’s blacklisting of Americans and the Red Scare in the 1950’s. The same mob hysteria takes hold in both periods as Miller examines religious intolerance, perversions of justice and the individual’s role in society. The Crucible, which never seems to lose its relevance, explodes with passion, fear, and danger when a group of teenage girls, caught dancing in the forest, take their revenge on their Salem Puritanical society by naming names of townspeople whom they claim are witches.

Known for centering a play around an ordinary man's moral crisis within American society, Miller with his sense of social consciousness gave us some of the greatest dramas of the twentieth century, including All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953) and A View from the Bridge (1955). His extensive list of works spans the last six decades and includes plays, screenplays, novels and essays. Some of his other notable plays include Incident at Vichy (1964), The Price (1968), The Ride Down Mount Morgan (1991), Broken Glass (1994) and Resurrection Blues (2002).

“You never tire of watching a masterpiece and The Crucible proves the point as Arthur Miller’s name may be most singularly associated with great American Theatre,” says production director Stacey Glazer. “Innocent people being accused of crimes they didn’t commit; a dynamic story of fear, courage, religious conviction and personal integrity. It’s hot stuff!” Stacey has also directed The City Theatre productions of The Laramie Project, How the Other Half Loves and the Austin Critic’s Table Award nominee Rabbit Hole.

B. Iden Payne award-winners Rachel McGinnis (as Elizabeth Proctor) and Angela Loftus (as Abigail Williams) lead the cast and introduce Brian Villalobos (as John Proctor). The Crucible features Craig Kanne, Gabriel Smith, Laura Ray, John McNeil, Michelle Alexander with Bridget Farias, Lorella Loftus, Callie Boatman, Carrie Stephens, Nathaniel Reid, Daniel Norton, Clay Avery, Brett Shaw, Dewayne Mangan, Liz Roark, Kati Pike and Mikayla McIntyre.

The City Theatre Company is a non-profit organization and is sponsored in part by the Greater Austin Creative Alliance, the Austin Cultural Arts Division and the AMD Foundation.

Spider's Web, Different Stages at the Vortex Repertory, July 2 - 24

You don't see much of Agatha Christie in the United States any more, except perhaps in public libraries and the occasional revival of one of her many plays. Airport newstands will offer you thick paperbacks by Clive Custler or Sue Grafton or any of a number of other contemporary producers of blockbusters.

Different Stages does us a service by providing an accomplished and amusing production of her mid-twentieth-century curio, Spider's Web. Most of Dame Agatha's familiar elements are there: an isolated old manse in the countryside, a collection of proper, well brought up English folk, a murder and some earnest police officers trying to clear it up. There's a mystery to solve -- who assaulted the despicable Oliver Costello with a blunt object in the secret passage? Christie is very sporting with her puzzle, scattering clues along the way like Hansel and Gretel dropping breadcrumbs in the woods.

Spider's Web is a comedy rather than a thriller. Clarissa, the vivacious young wife of a much older British diplomat, happily plays country hostess as husband Henry, all atwitter, rushes off to deal with Foreign Office business. She teases and charms the three men visiting from London -- her former guardian, who has been knighted; a half-deaf old country duffer; and a young man from London who courts her shamelessly. Mix in a couple of eccentric servants, the wicked dope dealer who gets bashed, and the plods from the local constabulary.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Good Things by Liz Lochhead, Renaissance Austin at the Vortex Repertory

Scottish toffee comes to mind when thinking of this U.S. premiere of Good Things by contemporary Scottish dramatist Liz Lochhead. Sweet, chewy, rich and surprising, made with sugar, butter, Tate & Lyle's golden syrup and just a dash of vinegar. You can find recipes on line.

Unlike English toffee, Good Things has no nuts. The characters are ordinary folk, for the most part, except maybe for Scottish Doris who haunts the "Good Things" thrift shop in search of the perfect bargain.

The shop resembles an OXFAM thrift shop, a British institution similar to our own Good Will stores, accepting donations for re-sale, to benefit charity. Pert young manageress Marjorie (Angela Loftus) enforces the rules, admonishing her volunteers Susan and Fraser that no donation, however attractive, may be purchased by staff members until it has sat on the shelf for six weeks.

This rule is the basis for one of the show's running jokes. Red-haired, 51-year-old recently divorced Susan, played by Lorella Loftus, falls in love with a pair of extravagant red shoes. She and Fraser plot at length to keep the shoes away from potential buyers, going so far as to hide one of the pair.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Good Things by Liz Lochhead, Renaissance Austin at the Vortex, June 12 - 27

UPDATE: Click for ALT review of Good Things, June 18



Found at NowPlayinginAustin.com:


Renaissance Austin and Vortex Repertory Company present

Good Things

by Liz Lochhead
June 12 - June 27

Renaissance Austin Theatre in association with VORTEX Repertory Company presents the U.S. Premiere of Liz Lochhead's romantic comedy, Good Things, directed by Karen Jambon.

“Liz Lochhead’s delightful new play is as funny, as touching, and yet as emotionally true as anything this supremely humane writer has yet produced” ---London Times

Good Things is a deliciously light romantic comedy recently penned by one of Scotland's finest literary award-winning female playwrights, Liz Lochhead (Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Medea).

Newly-divorced 40-something Oxfam volunteer Susan has finally settled on life as a single parent when a series of chance encounters and a procession of colorful characters turn her quiet life upside down . . . Witty, whimsical, funny and poignant, there is someone for everyone in this delightfully humane play.

Good Things stars Lorella Loftus, Craig Kanne, Michael Hankin, and Angela Loftus. The design team includes David DeMaris, Elaine Jacobs, Patrick Anthony, Andy Agne, Jonathan Urso, and Adam Gunderson.

Tickets: $10-$30
Info Phone: 512-478-LAVA
June 12-June 27, 2009, 8 p.m.
The VORTEX
2307 Manor Road Austin, TX 78722