Piccin navigated his demanding character with precision and mastered an emotional transcending tranquility by the show’s conclusion, aided by his artful exchange with Emma Hackett, who plays his wife, Elizabeth Proctor.
LUMINA THEATER FREE
Tom Piccin as John Proctor provided a raw and unsettling performance as Proctor struggles to free himself from the seductive and strangling web cast over his marriage by domestic service girl, Abigail, and their secret tryst.
The human struggle between Abigail and the Proctors form the center of the turmoil as the story unfolds. Her vivid, expressive eyes and near-telepathic acting still haunt me. Hypnotizing was the girl who cried “witch!” Marnie Kanarek in the role of Abigail was bewitching as a shape-shifter from demon to victim. This often spellbinding and emotional production showcases a phenomenal cast of talented actors, including experienced and novice talent of all ages, some of whom are family members. The effective use of light and sound is praiseworthy. The raw scenic design, costume color, and lighting design decisions mirrored the time and place, while enhancing the theme of inner reflection without distracting the senses. The unique choices made by Director/Producer Meghan Hackett beautifully allowed the actors’ movement and emotion to tell the story and engage the audience.
Mounting the play within a black box theater was highly suitable and effective. The plot began to boil from the opening scene in an intensely mystical dance of illusion in Salem, Massachusetts, in the events leading up to the Salem Witch Trials. The cast of Lumina Theatre Company’s production of The Crucible.
Part the curtain of this obvious low-hanging fruit, however, and Lumina’s production offers a distinctly deeper point of view not as that of observers of history and political events, but as engaged participants, as judge, juror, and sometimes defendant of our own deepest desires and wishes. The parallels of this Arthur Miller classic with current events are as obvious as when it was first staged during the McCarthyism era of 1953. It’s a witch hunt! Witches, whores, collusion, and corruption, peppered with a bit of witness tampering, threaten the dreams of small-town America in Lumina Theatre Company’s inaugural production of The Crucible.
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