Deirdre O’Connell – on whom last season’s Tony and just about every other award was draped for her astonishing lip-synched performance in Lucas Hnath’s Dana H. – is speaking this season. She speaks, all right, in two-time Pulitzer finalist Sarah Ruhl’s intriguingly titled Becky Nurse of Salem. And Ruhl sees to it that Becky doesn’t limit herself to refined expression. Becky is more than happy to f-word all over the place.
Becky Nurse – yes, “Nurse” is her surname – introduces herself as the tour guide at the Salem, Massachusetts witchcraft museum. She looks to be an obvious choice for the position. She’s directly descended (and surely named after) the Rebecca Nurse, who was believed to be a witch in 1692 Salem. That Rebecca Nurse was tried, found guilty, and done in for her supposed crime. Or even crimes? (No list of Rebecca Nurse’s charges is included in Ruhl’s script.)
All the above preliminary information should twig any regular theatergoer worth his or her salt to what Ruhl is about in the way of a dark comedy. Her acclaimed In the Next Room, or the vibrator play could be called a precursor to this one, certainly on the subject of women’s too often (more often since the Roe decision) second-class-citizen ranking across the nation.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Ruhl is up to an unmistakable spin on The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s witch-hunt allegory referring to the likes of the House Un-American Activities and Army-McCarthy hearings. She positions Becky as being treated like a witch of 2016-17.
As Ruhl’s plot edges along, Becky is fired from the museum for her questionable manners. Miffed, she decides to give Salem tours on her own. For starters, she steals a wax figure from the museum, a criminal act, to be sure, if not out-and-out witch-y.
On Becky goes. Raising granddaughter Gad (Alicia Crowder) with much love and care, she’s concerned about the 16-year-old’s increasing affection for Stan (Julian Sanchez), an older fellow not averse to pot. Becky is also enamored of Bob (Bernard White), whom she hopes to land as a husband – with the aid of, uh-oh, love potions. She’s chummy with actual local Witch (Candy Buckley), further adding to her witch resumé.
There you have it, Ruhl’s imagining a strain of contemporary witchcraft. She contrives it that Becky is arrested for breaking and entering as well as for operating a tour without a license. The Jailer is a friendly local cop (Thomas Jay Ryan, who doubles as a stern 1692 judge). The breaking and entering charges are brought by Salem Museum of Witchcraft executive Shelby (Tina Benko.)
Ruhl further establishes Becky’s parallel crucible by, among other specifics, having a television – or is it a radio? – at the jail blaring about witch hunts and The Jailer declaring he’s fed up with “witch hunts this and witch hunts that.” To whom else might he be referring than a former disgraced, twice-impeached president and his vocal base? There’s no missing that this likens current “witch hunt” criers to their Salem precursors.
Ruhl underlines that comparison by at one tense moment sending the cast out dressed in Crucible costumes – the name of Miller’s John Proctor is frequently invoked – to circle the abashed Becky and chant “Lock her up, Lock her up.” (Yoo-hoo, Hillary Clinton and detractors, this means you.)
Anyone reading the rundown of Ruhl’s newest work is excused for thinking it’s all exceedingly obvious, so much so that not too far into Becky Nurse of Salem patrons could be musing silently, “We get it. Now get on with it.” That’s to say Ruhl’s dark comedy slowly, or perhaps not so slowly, devolves into something sophomoric.
What keeps it going for much of the eventually lightweight proceedings is the Lincoln Center production. Foremost, there’s O’Connell, for some time a critics and off-Broadway audiences love object, and now, as a result of the Broadway Tony, better known to more theatergoers.
As directed by Rebecca Taichman (another Rebecca practicing another brand of witchcraft), O’Connell throws herself body and voice into the role. She does everything she can to make more of the play than is there. She uses an infectious smile as well as the expressions and gestures common to a woman under increasing stress of her own uncontrolled, unexamined making. She’s often seen clutching the supposed wax figure she’s stolen, a sizable and ubiquitous prop also serving as a symbol of Becky’s supposed modern-day equivalent to bygone witches.
Taichman, Ruhl, and O’Connell are greatly abetted by set designer Riccardo Hernández, costume designer Emily Rebholz, lighting designer Barbara Samuels, props supervisor Claire Kavanah, and sound designer Palmer Hefferan, who has the acumen and good humor to feature Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” as exit music.
Hefferan builds on Ruhl’s point that as of today all seasons remain a season of the witch. Too bad the author hasn’t used more of her own first-rate playwrighting witchery for this Arthur Miller-like political indictment.
Becky Nurse of Salem opened December 4, 2022, at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and runs through December 31. Tickets and information: lct.org
