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Last year The Theatre School produced Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill. Written almost fifty years ago in 1976, the play asks its audience to recognize the violent injustice of the witch hunt critically and draw parallels to contemporary feminist issues. So, why another witch play so soon? What is different about this one?
Witch takes a different strategy than Vinegar Tom by utilizing modernized language, economic dialogues, and queer characters to create and examine the meaning of hope. While Caryl Churchill presents a variety of settings in the accusation and prosecution of witches, Jen Silverman (writing in 2022) pans away from proceedings at the courts and gallows to zoom in on two extremes: a nobleman’s banquet hall and the hut of a poor woman. This dichotomy brings the financial gap between Elizabeth and Sir Arthur to the forefront of Witch. Prejudice brought about by the system of capitalism is an implicit mechanism in this play.
Elizabeth and Sir Arthur stand at two ends of a socioeconomic spectrum, with the remaining three human characters falling somewhere in between. Witch puts forth the lives of people at many social levels. They each express their truth through arias (not unlike the songs in Churchill’s play), speaking to the audience directly. Their candor reveals that even those with the most privilege suffer in the system of their own design. Silverman is more interested in various depictions of suffering, from a grieving husband to a pregnant servant.
Here to offer false hope for a way out is Scratch. Instead of the Devil as an offstage figment with implicit power, Witch centers the Devil as Scratch: a fleshed-out character whose unexpected friendship with Elizabeth makes him question hope like any human would. When Elizabeth surprises him by denying his offer, Scratch is forced to contend with the insufficiency of his deal.
The fluidity of Scratch’s gender expression is a choice made to fulfill his hope that the deals will be signed. With this expansive characterization, Witch depicts gender fluidity. It also presents queer desire. Frank suppresses his desire for Cuddy in favor of the masculine, heteronormative standard– leaving Cuddy to transform his own queer desire into an ultimate act of violence. In queering this story, Jen Silverman advocates for an intersectional feminist liberation.
These elements— the setting of extreme economic dichotomy and queer gender and sexuality— set Witch apart from last season’s witch play as they are distinct concerns of our moment in addition to and in conversation with misogyny. In Witch, as in our 2023 world, these issues are interconnected. This play explores how hope is needed to survive life at each intersection. It is our hope that this play incites its audience to, like Elizabeth, cast off the restraints of expectation and demand a new life.