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John Proctor Is The Villain
Maggie Kuntz, Morgan Scott, Fina Strazza, Amalia Yoo (Photo: Julieta Cervantes) John Proctor Is The Villain By Julia Polinsky Kimberly Belflower's John Proctor Is The Villain draws an exhilarating, troubling portrait of teenage girls as they once were, are now, and may forever be. Set in 2018, and dealing with the mass of new, increasing, and disturbing #MeToo accusations at all levels of society, the play is, in some ways, a period piece. In a one-stoplight town in Georgia, eight students in the high school honors lit class are studying that classic of 20th century drama, beloved of high school English teachers everywhere: Arthur Miller's The Crucible. The trouble with teaching The Crucible, even if you're a teacher so cool you're like something from central casting for a teen-spirational movie, is that wild girls are central to the play. And if you have girls in your classroom, they may take that wildness to heart. They may, for instance, start a Feminism Club, in the teeth of objections from an out-of-her-depth guidance counselor (Molly Griggs). The teacher pulling them through The Crucible, Mr. Carter (Gabriel Ebert) has a devoted following of brainy girls: uber-nerd Beth (Fina Strazza); icy Ivy (Maggie Kuntz); hip-and-cool new kid Nell (Morgan Scott); Raelynn (Amalia Yoo), the Preacher's Kid; and Shelby (Sadie Sink), inexplicably absent for months and just returned. Boys are there, too: Lee (Hagan Oliveras), Raelynn's ex-boyfriend, who betrayed her with Shelby, and dim-but-pursuing Mason (Nihar Duvvuri).
Maggie Kuntz, Morgan Scott, Sadie Sink, Fina Strazza, Nihar Duvvuri, Hagan Oliveras (Photo: Julieta Cervantes) If you are a teacher so uber-cool as to offer to be the faculty advisor for that feminism club, you're setting yourself up for enlightenment - and you may not like it. You yourself may claim to be the target of a witch-hunt, a term that, once literal, gained metaphorical traction in the 20th and 21st centuries. If you assign an "interpretive project" on the play, as Mr. Carter does, be ready for wild girls dancing. And screaming. And laughing. If this looks like witchery to you, maybe you'll finally understand that the girls of Salem were every bit as wild at soul as modern teens, and the accusations against them were false and fundamentally evil. Amalia Yoo, Sadie Sink (Photo: Julieta Cervantes) The title of the play is a dead giveaway that this re-working of The Crucible is female-forward and the men do not come off well, to say the least. Not Lee, Raelynn's borderline-abusive ex-boyfriend, included here to be a foil for the smarter, wiser, more thoughtful young women in the class. Not Mason, who makes "clueless" an art form, and understands nothing he's reading until it's spelled out to him, in short words and simple concepts, by the same smarter, wiser, more thoughtful young women. Certainly not Mr. Carter, no matter how cool he seems at first. As the students think and talk more about John Proctor's role in The Crucible, events in their lives force them to deal with uncomfortable truths: the sexual exploitation of young women that happened in 1692 Salem still happens in Nowhere, Georgia in 2018. Upright members of the community aren't always what they seem. Men can and do get away with unspeakable behavior. No wonder they re-frame the "hero" John Proctor as, well, a villain. Belflower has written John Proctor Is The Villain as a series of quick-cut scenes, which work like TV, and not in a good way. It feels like a work in progress, rather than a play that's been produced regionally for years, as this one has. For that matter, it's as if she's still working out how to write an actual play, rather than a telescript. Director Dayna Taymor, who certainly knows how to bring a show about young people to life (Tony award for The Outsiders), makes these kids vivid, but is stuck with the choppy nature of the script; she does what she can wit it. Effective lighting design comes from Natasha Katz and spot-on costumes from Sarah Laux. Scenic design from AMP and Teresa L. Williams nails the ickiness of patronizing positivity imposed by a high school administration (the tennis balls on the feet of the desks are a particularly nice touch). The performances of the young bring John Proctor Is The Villain to vivid life. Standouts: Amalia Yoo as Raelynn, hurt but with a solid core of self-knowledge and still learning, and Sadie Sink of (Stranger Things fame) as Shelby, who walks the walk of someone who knows heartbreak, rage, and finally vindication. John Proctor Is The Villain offers excellent performances and relatable characters in a gripping evening of theater, and takes on questions of power and truth at its core. John Proctor Is The Villain At the Booth Theatre 222 W. 45th St Through July 6 Tickets: https://johnproctoristhevillain.com/ 
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