By: David de Young
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Publicity photo from Vinegar Tom - Photo by Tony Nelson
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Vinegar Tom is set in seventeenth century England during the witch trials that resulted from the Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th century treatise written to help to route out and identify witches. Churchill’s play, originally developed in repertory with the feminist theater company The Monstrous Regiment, features seven musical numbers. But it’s neither a musical nor a period piece. The 21 scenes of the play are punctuated by contemporary songs sung by members of the cast out of costume and disassociated with their respective characters. Performing the songs in this way makes it difficult for the audience to dismiss the issues raised by the play as someone else's problems or as the political themes of another time and place in history.
The action of Vinegar Tom begins with Alice (played by Emily Gunyou Halaas) finishing up a roadside tryst with an unnamed man played by Christopher Kehoe. Despite Alice’s pleas, he runs off, but not before referring to himself as the devil and calling her a whore.
Other characters in the play include Alice’s mother Joan (played by Dona Werner Freeman), Susan, who seems to always be either giving birth or miscarrying (played by Katrina Hawley), Betty, who is to be married off against her will (played by Anika Solveig), and a natural healer referred to as a Cunning Woman (played by Lori Neal.) Alice’s neighbors, dairy farmers Jack and Margery are played by Patrick Bailey and Virginia Burke. The cast also features Cheryl Willis as Goody and Tessa Flynn as Bellringer.
As action proceeds, first Joan and then other women are accused of being witches as the townspeople look for people to blame for various maladies and strange happenings in the village. Women familiar with natural forms of healing are suspect, as are any who exhibit independent thinking.
Vinegar Tom is a tough and thought-provoking play. The production took me much longer to digest than many of Frank Theatre’s recent productions. But despite the challenges of the material for both the director and the audience, I left the theater sure that the production is an unmistakable success.
In reading through the dozens of pages of the resource guide Frank director Wendy Knox offered up for sale at the merch table after the show, one thing in particular jumped at me. In an excerpt of commentary by Janelle Reinelt that Knox included, Reinelt talks about Bertolt Brecht’s discovery that “by historicizing the incidents of the narrative, a playwright can cause the audience to become conscious of certain habitual perceptions which have been established by the historical tradition and therefore partially determine the present.” Vinegar Tom is Brechtian in this regard. One reviewer of a production in London earlier this year said the play, “first strikes the viewer a somewhat spiced up Brechtian version of The Crucible.”
Another review I read suggested that some stagings of Vinegar Tom can come off like feminism 101 class; but as one who spent the last two years of my college English major focusing exclusively on feminist literary criticism, I can confidently say that the Frank Theater production also avoids that trap. That’s not to say I didn’t clearly get the point that persecution and marginalization of women is alive and well in the 21st century.
But it’s for just this reason that Vinegar Tom is as timely today as when it was written. (Knox’s resource material included an article about the various terminology used to vilify Hillary Clinton in her recent bid for the presidential nomination.)
Original music for the Frank production was composed locally by Marya Hart, Willie Murphy, Annie Enneking George Maurer, Ruth MacKenzie and Pablo. Live musicians include Marya Hart on keyboard, and vocalists Tessa Flynn, Celeste Jones and Eva Nelson.
Vinegar Tom runs through October 5th. For info and reservations call the Ritz Theater at 612-436-1129 or visit www.RitzTheaterFoundation.org
Location Info:
The Ritz Theater
Artist Info: Frank Theatre
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