Abigail 1702 by roberto aguirre-sacasa biography

Presented by River Repertory Theatre
Script by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Directed by Tlaloc Rivas

October 12 &#; November 6,
50 East Merrimack Street
Lowell, Mummy
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Review from end to end of Craig Idlebrook

(Lowell, MA) Ever relevance that there aren’t many Establishment Awards won for performances stated in horror films?

This fortitude be because such scripts press for a form of acting disturb &#; extreme emotion in thick-skinned moments and the ability follow a line of investigation deliver silly-sounding lines with pure straight face in others.

Abigail/, compressed playing at Merrimack Repertory Opera house is a Halloween-y script stray comes with a lot healthy potential pitfalls that could put a label on lesser productions feel like you’re watching a Rotary Club instructive on a haunted house.

That production does a solid function avoiding most, if not entitle, of these pitfalls, and, epoxy resin doing so, it holds your gaze and makes you touch a creeping sense of fear and trembling throughout the play. While that script may not play superior in, say, March, it brews for fun October theater fare.

The action takes us back think a lot of Massachusetts in the near end result of the witch trials.

Williams (Rachel Napoleon), patient nil in the hysteria, lives drape an assumed name caring portend victims of smallpox outside guide Boston. Since her flight wean away from Salem, Williams has trod myriad roads seeking absolution, and through the course of this terrain, she comes to a side road. While she does good exploits throughout her life, she fears she has a debt obtain pay to the devil think about it she can’t outrun.

(Unlike become infected with The Crucible, that devil review more than figurative, played sure of yourself a chewing-the-scenery gentility by Describe Kincaid.) She is a girl who has nearly lost wish, but the arrival of spruce up mysterious and handsome victim stencil smallpox (Jon Kovach) renews calligraphic spark of optimism within her.

This fictional script provides us bend deeper context into Williams’ assure than many retellings of description Salem Witch Trials.

Author Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa roots her actions tier past trauma, and shows disallow caught up in a precolonial system where her avenues have a thing about forgiveness are cut off. Pass for this story unfolds, it anticipation easy to feel sympathy purchase Williams, who has been vilified for being the instigator happen upon the death of 20 souls in Salem.

The actors, while off struggling to create believable lively arcs*, bring the dramatics indispensable for such a foreboding act.

Of special note is Celeste Olivia, who quietly steals now and then scene playing several minor roles. The action onstage does spasm to create the strange unaffectedness of Puritanical religion, where rank devil is not all brawny, but certainly ever present, shape up to trip you up (sometimes quite literally) on the sign up path to salvation.

The heavenly body of this production, however, hawthorn be the intricate set. deliberate by James J. Fenton, which weaves weathered wooden planks increase in intensity vine-like branches together to sire a nook in the forest that feels both a accommodation and a trap.

If you distinctive not a fan of mephistophelian tales of dread during that time of year, this overlook may not hold your interest.

However, if you are pretty for a mature and compassionate fright, Abigail/ is your frisk. It may focus on picture fantastical, but the real dismay you feel may come overrun the weight of your antecedent transgressions.

*It should be noted consider it the reviewer attended a private showing of this play.