You don't see a lot of theatre about witch-hunts - presumably because Arthur
Miller's
The Crucible is so widely regarded (if not necessarily by me) as a
masterpiece, that anything else would be held up to comparison. It's not put off
Rebecca Lenkiewicz though, as she not only revisits the paranoia in
Jane Wenham,
the Witch of Walkern, she also finds a new and bitingly topical metaphor in the
theme: Society's poor, old and disabled being demonised, scapegoated and ultimately
disposed of. The village of Walkern in Generic Rural Accentshire saw its share of
witch trials and executions in the 17th century, and decades later, when everyone
thinks things are calming down, they flare up again. As the play opens a woman has
just been hanged as a witch, leaving behind a distressed and sexually confused
daughter, Ann (Hannah Hutch.)
