Moser Theatre, Wadham College

Tuesday 16th – Saturday 20th February; 7.30pm

“I left this play thoroughly disturbed. If any character can terrify you it is Goody (played by Louisa Hollway), eating an apple and reclining on a table covered in blood, wearing a black shirt with a white frilled collar and revelling in the ‘pricking’ of the potential witches.” Arabella Currie ★★★★★

“the sense of discord was harmonised through the final song, a response to the question “Where have all the witches gone?” – the repeated affirmation, “here we are”, being redolent of female solidarity through time and Churchill’s more militant feminism.” Sujata Banerjee ★★★★★

Vinegar Tom ★★★★★

Review by Arabella Currie

The Greek word for womb gives us our word ‘hysteria’ since it was long thought that the womb wandered about the body and caused diseases of all sorts. ‘Vinegar Tom’ examines how and why female behaviour is ascribed to something wrong within them – be it the devil or a wandering womb.

Our foray into rural 16th century England is disturbed a few scenes in by a chorus of three women in modern dress rushing onto stage through the audience. They are, according to the flyer, the Brechtian chorus of feminists. The juxtaposition of their physicality and modern references with the dramatisation of the historical witch hunts is wonderfully odd. Caryl Churchill hammers home the idea that witch hunts are still happening now. What we do not have now to such an extent is a preoccupation with sin. Standing at the scaffold Susan is convinced she is eternally damned, and racked with guilt she says ‘I was a witch and I never knew it. I never knew I was so wicked’. The play presents to us women haunted by the idea of being bad.

If this review has not yet really commented on Sarah McCready’s production of the play it is because ‘Vinegar Tom’ raises so many interesting questions, which waylay one’s thoughts. Thanks to the way this production has been done, mercifully such ideas are given a full exploration but do not take over. The decision to keep the characters on the edges of the stage throughout is effective, as is the simplicity of the set which fluidly becomes new places. However, this fluidity can at times lead to a feeling of the action floating. This is in many ways an extremely good thing, but makes one wish that the formlessness were fully exploited. It seems at times that the production cannot decide whether it is placeless or placed.

I left this play thoroughly disturbed. If any character can terrify you it is Goody (played by Louisa Hollway), eating an apple and reclining on a table covered in blood, wearing a black shirt with a white frilled collar and revelling in the ‘pricking’ of the potential witches. Roz Stone’s Betty is a performance just as harrowing. She has been pronounced wicked after her refusal to marry, and, strapped to a chair by the doctor, she horribly raves – all the more horribly because, as the play reminds us often, such attitudes really happen. This is an important play to see.

Vinegar Tom ★★★★★

Review by Sujata Banerjee

“Where have all the witches gone? Who are the witches now?” are the fundamental questions posed by McCready’s poignantly realised adaptation of Churchill’s ‘Vinegar Tom’. A strident feminist perspective of four women who become caught up in the hysteria induced by sixteenth century witch trials, Churchill’s decision to write the play was deeply entrenched in the second major feminist movement of the 1970s. Here, the dual function of the episodic and linear narrative located in the sixteenth century, and the intermittent modern-day Brechtian feminist chorus, is in a rare moment allowed to bleed into one another as the cast members are stripped of their period costumes, their black clothes suggestive of timelessness. As members of the audience, we are left feeling distinctly unsettled, forced to consider the way in which views of woman as the cultural ‘other’ are still inherently rooted within contemporary society.

The minimalist staging is most effective in underlining the emotionally charged quality of the play. In particular, the continued presence of the cast on the edges of the stage evoked a sense of confinement and repressiveness, sporadically interrupted by the energy of the chorus which relied on the actors weaving through the audience. Although at times this appeared dissonant with the overall action of the play, the sense of discord was harmonised through the final song, a response to the question “Where have all the witches gone?” – the repeated affirmation, “here we are”, being redolent of female solidarity through time and Churchill’s more militant feminism.

The use of decisive, simple blocking was also effective in allowing individual performances to shine. In particular, Emile Halpin doubled up brilliantly as the allegoricised ‘Man’ and Packer, evocative of a chillingly stoic representation of phallocentric violence, further highlighted through the graphic imagery of bloodied sheets on which women are inspected for signs betraying witchcraft. These are hauntingly juxtaposed by the silent screams and struggles of Margherita Phillip, Alice Fletcher and Roz Stone, again betraying the element of repression at the crux of the play.

Uncomfortable and often traumatic to watch, there is no doubt that ‘Vinegar Tom’ is designed to leave the audience feeling disconcerted and pensive, rather than entertained. Yet its pursuit for a heightened awareness of humanity is brilliantly evoked through such explorations, distinguishing it as a play not to be missed this term.