Photo by Joe Mazza, Brave Lux
This is a story about what happens when the Devil comes to town.
Which version did you think of? From literature–The Devil and Daniel Webster? The Devil and Tom Walker? Memnoch? Mephisto? Maybe a film–Rosemary’s Baby? Bedazzled? Constantine? O’Brother, Where Art Thou? The Devil Wears Prada? Remember that one movie with Al Pacino and Keanu Reaves that wasn’t very good? How about music? Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil to be the best guitar player in the world. The Devil Went Down to Georgia with the Charlie Daniels band “lookin’ for a soul to steal.” Superheroes? Did you know Loki, Dr. Strange, Magik, Magma, the Scarlet Witch, and Spider-Man all sold their souls to the Devil at one point or another in their comic book universes? There’s a Twilight Zone episode, of course, and countless other television characters faced Satan’s deal-making prowess, but how about this? The Muppets (really)! The Muppets very nearly sold their souls to Alice Cooper in a Halloween special episode. “Of course, Miss Piggy was most receptive to this Faustian deal,” according to Wikipedia’s “Deals with the Devil in Popular Culture” page.
Since the first appearance of the Devil in the Bible, he’s been willin’ to make a deal. For centuries, poets, playwrights, and artists of every stripe have been warning us of the perils of the fallen angel’s offer. But is there anything new under the sun–or the moon, I guess–for this storyline?
Playwright Jen Silverman’s Witch–loosely based on the English Jacobean play The Witch of Edmonton, written in 1621–gives a darkly comic, funhouse mirror take on the world of 2023.
From the first moments of the play, it’s clear Witch will be no ordinary fable. Here’s the story, as described by the Den. “A charming devil arrives in the quiet village of Edmonton to bargain for the souls of its residents in exchange for their darkest wishes. Elizabeth should be his easiest target, having been labeled a ‘witch’ and cast out by the town, but her soul is not so readily bought.”
When the Devil arrives, he finds a host of villagers who are more than willing to snatch up his offer. The pitch is simple: you have so much to gain, and you’re not really even using your soul anyway. But the easy deals come to a halt when the Devil meets the Witch. She doesn’t have much–no money, no friends, and she’s an outcast who lives in a hut–but she has her soul. She’s no sucker, and she’s certainly no one’s fool, so she turns him away… kinda.
And the Devil likes her. Maybe a little too much.
There’s a whole lot to like about The Artistic Home’s production of Witch. Silverman’s update on one of the world’s oldest stories feels, at once, fresh and new and tried and true. She breathes life into the fable with clever twists and sharp, pitter-pat dialogue, and she plays with the traditional story form by infusing a heavy dose of identity into the brew. And the whole thing comes off feeling risky and brave. At first, it looks like it’s gonna be a play we’ve seen before, but then it’s most definitely not.
Credit The Artistic Home ensembles’ performances for delivering on the promise. Member Devon Carson skillfully directs the ensemble cast, crafting a series of complicated and simple, intimate moments, like the passing of a candle, to connect the play’s storylines. Julian Hester, Kristin Collins, Ernest Henton, Declan Collins, Ariana Lopez, and Todd Wojcik all shine in their roles, with Hester leading the way as Scratch, the Devil.
Kristin Collins gives a gripping performance as Elizabeth the Witch. Collins manages to convey her strength in the face of passion and temptation and the pain she has endured as the town outcast as she makes it increasingly clear over the course of the play that she doesn’t want to sell Scatch her soul, but she also doesn’t want him to leave.
Jeff Award winner Todd Wojcik is wonderful as Sir Arthur, the rich Noble looking for an heir for his name, manor, and land. His son Cuddy, played by Declan Collins, and Frank–the low-born wander, played by Ernest Henton, who has found his way to the old man’s heart and perhaps into his will–argue, dance, and fight across the storyline, as they vie for what feels like ten different forms of acceptance and recognition and make their way through a pair of love triangles. And Ariana Lopez is by turns funny and tender as Sir Arthur’s servant and Frank’s secret wife.
The fine performances are ably supported by the production team, including Kevin Hagan’s set, Ellie Fay’s lighting design, Rachel Lambert’s costumes, and Petter Wahlbäck’s sound design.
The ensemble’s skill and craft, under Carson’s more than capable direction, with solid production elements, gives the production a frenetic energy that builds as the story swings from horror to slapstick, from anger to tender and loving, from clever to violent. All the while delivering a mid-seventeenth-century version of 2023 social commentary.
Carson summed up the power of Witch and its relevance to today, “There’s a very powerful strain of cynicism that has slowly infected us since this play first premiered. 2023 feels like the putrid, liquescent corpse of 2018. And if we’ve learned anything in the last five years, it’s that soulless individuals do pretty well for themselves. I love that this play isn’t a cure for our collective infection; it’s a game of chicken. I’m desperately curious to see how folks are changed by the playwright’s vivid presentation of the choices that lay in front of us.”
When I read Carson’s quote in the press packet before the show, I thought, that’s a pretty tall order for one play. It’s hard to shine a light that bright. But Witch does just that. Like any great artistic piece, Witch is beautiful and brave, but above all, Witch asks us to think deeply about what it means to have hope, or stop having hope, in a world that isn’t always fair and gets a little more complicated every day. At the end of the day, the Witch tells us we live in a strange, often cruel world, and all we have are our souls and each other, so hang on tight. We laugh through this insight because it’s wrapped in clever dialogue spoken by interesting characters, and we laugh because it’s funny, and we laugh because it’s true. And we laugh and then stop laughing because we understand that the Witch is right.
Witch runs through Sunday, December 3rd, at the Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, Chicago. You can get tickets here. For more Chicago reviews or show information, see chicagoonstage.com or theatreinchicago.com.