Jenet herself never thought she'd be in this position because she has a secret: 21 years earlier at the age of nine she was the chief accuser in the infamous witch trials that saw nearly a dozen people hanged for witchcraft, including her entire family.
Obviously she assumes her own arrest is a mistake but everyone else must be guilty, but as she gets to see the way the "justice" system works she has to reevaluate not only her assumptions about the other women, but much more painfully what it says about her own role in the system, and whether her memories are what she's always thought they are. The show does this through her relationship with her cellmates, especially the initially combative one with pregnant Rose (Lauryn Redding.)
Rose's mother Martha (Penny Layden) confesses early on, sacrificing herself for her daughter and grandchild, but the judge has a further twist of the knife as Rose is denied her freedom as agreed, because she can't afford to pay the rent on the time she's spend in jail so far. The fact that Rose is unmarried and pregnant (by Frances' husband, consent presumably not a major part of the equation,) makes her a particular focus for the way Jenet will have to reevaluate her religious beliefs, and the automatic assumptions she makes about other women.
There's a lot that's very well done here, not least of all the references to the modern-day persecution of women and how it parallels the "witches:" Nell's song about being accused because she saved a woman by helping abort a child that was already dead has obvious themes of bodily autonomy, while the more we find out about the witch hunts the more we see incel connections in the men angry that a woman won't sleep with them, who'll accuse her of sleeping with the devil instead. The themes are there and clear, but not overstated or crowbarred in.
But the intensity of Miranda Cromwell's production can't disguise the elements that feel very uneven in the show: The writers are keen to give a lot of the cast their big, emotional, belting number, but it does lead to long periods where the tone gets pretty monotonous. The first act's major lull does get broken with Diana Vickers' Edmund, the 11-year-old boy who's cheerfully condemned dozens of women whether he's ever met them or not. Presumably for rewards or attention, or just because he's got a wicked heart, which beats out of time for you.
Comic moments like his semi-rapped testimony (after which he gets a lollipop) are a welcome change of atmosphere but not always a very comfortable fit with what surrounds them. We do get three standout rousing numbers, in the aforementioned midwife's song, Jenet's big reckoning with her past, and a climactic group number. Although the latter does come twenty minutes before the end, leading not so much to Multiple Ending Syndrome, as to two middle-aged women in the front row standing up, performatively whooping, finger-snapping and yaas queening, and resting their drinks on the stage while Redding is trying to give birth on it. Some real strengths mean Coven will definitely find an audience that'll feel empowered by it, but it does ramble on the way to finding them.
Coven by Rebecca Brewer and Daisy Chute is booking until the 17th of January at the Kiln Theatre.
Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner.
Brilliant review. I saw it last night and I think some elements of it are so stand out and engaging that it will definitely find its audience. I fell in love with so much of it. It has a quiet first quarter but its is like a rollercoaster picking up momentum. By the second half it's a last night of your holiday sing-along. Yass queen.
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