Richmond Shakespeare Society is performing a new production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible that the director says will blend the traditional with the modern.
The theatre company, playing out of the Mary Wallace Theatre in Twickenham, will put on the acclaimed play for the first time in 40 years in October, with tickets on sale from 21 September.
In 1953, The Crucible’s first ever performance in New York won a Tony Award, and has been staged countless times ever since.
However this will be the first time since the 1980s it will have been performed in Richmond, a premise director Simon Bickerstaffe called ‘preposterous’.
Bickerstaffe said: “It’s one heck of an undertaking, and I’m thrilled to be the guy in charge.”
The famous play follows numerous accusations of witchcraft in Salem which culminates in judicial trials and distortions of truth.
Despite Miller setting The Crucible in 1692, the RSS wants to highlight the universality and timelessness of the play’s message.
The director said: “Nowadays nobody really gives a damn about the truth. I believe we have a responsibility to put this play on now.”
Bickerstaffe wants to merge the traditional historical elements with modernity to highlight the continued relevance and importance of Miller’s play, with period costumes combined with contemporary staging and techniques.
He revealed: “There’s a couple of theatrical devices we are using that absolutely drag the audience kicking and screaming, not just as witnesses to the production, but as participants in it.”
There was around 100 individual auditions for this production alone.
Bickerstaffe said: “There were more people at these auditions than any other audition I have been involved in.”
The cast is made up of 24 people, compared to the average of 11 in previous RSS productions. People as far as Reading and East London are travelling to get involved, aged from 12 to 78 years old.
Bickerstaffe has been a member of the RSS for 30 years, having had directed a myriad of plays from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Wind in the Willows.
He described Twickenham and Richmond as a being an intellectual, fun and lively area, where there is an appetite for this play.
The play takes places between October 24 and 31. Ticket can be booked on the society’s website.
Featured image credit: Eleanor Banyard
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