9th Play - John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower
From left, Deidre Staples, Resa Mishina, Miranda Rizzolo and Jordan Slattery in the Studio Theatre in Washington, DC - Photo: Margot Schulman
Going through my file of plays, I FORGOT I HAD THIS ONE! I have been wanting to read this for a while now and finally got the chance!
Summary: “At a rural high school in Georgia, a group of lively teens are studying The Crucible while navigating young love, sex ed, and a few school scandals. Holding a contemporary lens to the American classic, they begin to question who is really the hero and what is the truth, discovering their own power in the process. Alternately touching and bitingly funny, this new comedy captures a generation in mid-transformation, running on pop music, optimism, and fury, writing their own coming of age story.” From Dramatists Play Service.
Laura’s thoughts in brief: Um, WOW. This play. Wow. Wow. First of all, you will NEVER look at The Crucible the same. Not that this play diminishes the points that Arthur Miller was making about McCarthyism in America, but it does make you re-examine the characters and how we perceive them. As a response to the national currents of sexual and other assaults on women, the teens in this play try to start a Feminist Club, which is “tricky” in their environment, as told to them by Miss Gallagher, the counselor, wanting to encourage the girls, but not wanting to bring trouble into the school: “this is a small town,” she says , “we have to be aware of the ripple effect our actions can have…” Mr. Smith, the hunky teacher everyone thinks is great, saves the day by offering to tie the club into his class’s studies of The Crucible and bringing a male class member in to keep the club from being a problem. I truly love that this play shows us characters in rural Georgia who are progressive and smart thinkers. Despite the fact that the area is heavily dominated by the conservative right, we see the students and even the teachers (well, these two at least) being pretty open-minded and thoughtful, even as occasionally we hear them spouting ideology learned from their Christian families. I really appreciate that the play shows the ingrained Christian conservative ideology in many of these characters, but also allows them to question the misogyny they see around them. That gives me hope. The play gives a pretty accurate depiction of 2020’s teens from what I’ve seen, and those scenes are truthful, funny and sometimes painful reminders of the challenges of those years, from talking about cute boys, stressing about grades, bonding over pop music and pop stars, talking about whether they want to have sex yet, to starting to learn and question what they’ve always been told. There is an incident which is revealed involving one of the girl’s fathers, who is a political figure (the mayor?) and his former secretary accusing him of sexual impropriety which throws everyone into confusion. But the real climax of the play is yet to come, when it takes a turn that I would not have expected (I will NOT spoil this one), and it’s at that point that everyone starts to really question the things they believed deeply were true. We see from the play, though, that even in the way-more-progressive 21st century, we (yes, even the women - just ask Hillary Clinton) still are not ready to side with the female, or we assume whatever happened was her fault, sigh. Big plot twists aside, the playwright also inserts instances of the casual misogyny that happens in a girl’s daily life, that now in the 21st century we are questioning. These actions now seem egregious, until we think about how things were in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s and remember that we DIDN’T question - boys will be boys, right? Fortunately, the teens of this generation are learning to question that attitude, even in rural Georgia. Lest you despair, the playwright does not hate men, and there are dimensional male characters in this play who seem to be doing the right thing, or seem to be learning. And the girls question the male teacher who says, “The future is female.” “Actually, that’s kind of problematic,” one responds. “The future is non-binary,” another chimes in, and then another adds, “the future is intersectional;” then we get, “the future is inclusive.” This is part of teen life that is unique to this time, and, well, again, it makes me hopeful. The thing I loved most about this play, in addition to the questioning of parental ideology and the wonderfully playful scenes of bonding over pop music and more, was that the playwright presents a world where things are still problematic, but there is hope. That feels like the real world to me, but in a way that makes me believe that this generation will be smarter in many ways than ours was, and maybe will make a difference. This play is challenging, thought-provoking, and FUNNY! It was a great read and would make an even greater production. I’d love to direct it - any takers? ;)
READ MORE! Here’s what others had to say about productions:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/05/04/john-proctor-villain-studio-theatre/
https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/02/20/john-proctor-huntington-review