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When Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, he used the Salem witch trials of 1692 as an allegory for the blacklisting of possible communists in the United States during the McCarthy era. Not only did the play speak out against the political climate of the times, it also managed to take on religion, history and drama with equal aplomb and ambiguity. For these reasons, The Crucible has since become a classic, standing the test of time as one of the few American plays that has equal reverence in theater, English literature and history circles.

Abigail/1702 by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is an imagined sequel to Miller’s masterpiece, which follows up on one of The Crucible’s main instigators, Abigail Williams, 10 years after the events at Salem. Premiering in 2012 in New York City, Abigail receives its West Coast premier here in Long Beach at the International City Theatre (ICT) under the direction of ICT Artistic Director caryn desai [sic]. Though the production elements of Abigail are of the professional quality we have come to expect from the ICT, they cannot hide the fact that Abigail itself is just not a very good play.

Abigail 3In Abigail/1702 all of the elements that make The Crucible so important and relevant are thrown out the window, focusing instead on a very literal-minded religious fable of a sinner seeking redemption.

Set on the outskirts of Boston in 1702 (imagine that), we find Abigail living under a new name and running a home for Smallpox victims. Abigail has been trying to live a righteous and redemptive life since instigating the deaths of numerous innocents in Salem 10 years prior. When a mysterious and handsome Smallpox victim with a similarly troubled past appears at her house asking for care, Abigail must confront her own demons and the very Devil she has been evading all these years.

By choosing to make the Devil a tangible character in his play, Aguirre-Sacasa does away with any sense of ambiguity regarding religion, creating a world instead that exists in a vacuum rather than one that touches on reality. While this is not necessarily a death wish, it does limit the ways in which his play can be staged and taken seriously by contemporary audiences that may see life and religion as more than black and white. Additionally, the basic structure of Abigail is similarly one-dimensional and lacking in dramatic pull, leaving the whole piece to spin inwardly on itself.

The only scene in which we see Abigail’s character start to grow is when she admits the secrets of her past to the young man she has been nursing. Sadly, this is the last scene that we see between these two characters and all hope for building towards a profound dramatic ending is swept up by the God (or in this case Satan) machine.

Under caryn desai’s direction, Abigail trusts in the playwright’s world view a bit more than it should. While a straightforward God vs. the Devil story could by all means resonate in this day and age, it requires the sort of mythical, larger than life quality of a nightmarish fairy tale to be relevant. If Abigail/1702 were to speak in the language of the Brothers Grimm or the old wives’ tales that instilled the fear of God not only in children but in the general Puritan public as well, it could by all means be successful. desai chooses instead to play the story straight, staging things in a fluent, composed and literal manner rather than one where the extremes of darkness and light that fueled the beliefs of those early American Protestants manifest themselves.

The small cast of five is nimble and talented, yet none of them are given characters multi-dimensional enough to create much lasting impact. Likewise, given the downplayed style of the acting on display here, no one, not even the Devil himself, gives performances that rise above the material.

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The most inspired elements of this production are the technical ones. Kim DeShazo’s costumes fit the period perfectly, without going over the top or losing people’s bodies in mis-fitted fabrics. Christopher Scott Murillo’s set design is deceptively simple but one of the more evocative elements of Abigail. The tree-like columns he renders out of manipulated metal and wire are both eerie and suggestive, though keeping them stationary throughout the production allows them to lose their initial intrigue as the play progresses. Donna Ruzika’s lighting is well thought out and attractive but it ultimately stays too much in tone with the rest of the artistic decisions for this play, which are unanimously straightforward. Only through Jeff Polunas’ subtle and creepy sound design, with low rumbles and vibrations constantly rolling beneath the play’s more dramatic scenes, do we encounter the kind of attention to mood that Abigail needs in order to be given a fighting chance.

While ICT should continually be commended on its dedication to premier and celebrate new works, it is necessary that the plays that are chosen are bold, contemporary and dramatically satisfying. We have seen this beautifully handled with Red two years ago and Other Desert Cities, last year. Both of those are brave new plays that were given handsome and confident productions by ICT. Abigail/1702 is a much weaker play than either of the aforementioned and in this current production, without a convincing theatrical language to call its own, that weakness is as clear as the path to eternal salvation is elusive.