Scholars estimate over 50,000 people died during the European
witch craze (which reached its zenith during the height of the
Protestant Reformation, 1550 – 1650.) These unequivocally innocent
victims were overwhelmingly female. Historians emphatically do not believe
women were actually flying around on broomsticks smothered in dead
baby fat and dancing in frenzied bacchanalian orgies. 50,000 people were falsely accused.
These tortured victims were
guilty only of being alone (widows with no male figure to protect
them), misunderstood (suffering from mental illness which caused
erratic behavior and—the tell-tale sign of a witch—enraged
cursing), and they were guilty of being women (subjugated,
vilified, objectified.)
The evolution and implications
of this historical belief in witchcraft as diabolical Christian
heresy are profound (transformation of quotidian household objects
into emblems of harmful sorcery, subversion of power destabilizing
the status quo, etc.)
Our
Jacobean playwrights (Dekker, Ford, Rowley) who wrote The
Witch of Edmonton do not question Mother Sawyer’s guilt
(from their perspective, witchcraft categorically exists.)
However, they singularly and stunningly show sympathy for her
plight.
Of
the many extant 16th/17th century plays
dealing with witchcraft, The Witch of Edmonton is unique—Mother Sawyer is treated with
immense compassion; of the many non-aristocratic characters
populating the play, Mother Sawyer alone speaks in verse rather
than prose.
Based
on real events, The Witch of Edmonton is also exceptional because it shows
characters from all levels of society—from struggling farmers to
nobility. This notion of community is integral to the theme of the
play: without charity and mobility, certain members of society
will inevitably be ostracized and alienated—and this fact explains
and leads to evil.
The central plot involves Frank
Thorney—recently married to Winnifred, whom he believes is bearing
his child (the child is actually Arthur Clarington’s, an immoral
nobleman.) Frank is forced by his father to marry Susan to save
the family estate (thus committing bigamy and gaining a sizable
dowry.) Frank is a victim—trapped by an unfair society with strict
and untenable codes. Like Frank, Sawyer lacks agency. She is
destitute, alone, called a witch, beaten and treated as one—yet,
even when the devil finally appears to her, he must threaten to
“tear” her before she gives her soul.
The kindness the play shows for
those we fear and its indictment of the aristocracy in promoting
criminality through systematic inequity make this play
extraordinary. I have tried to unite all the narratives in an
appropriate manner; I hope that no one watching can divine the
changes—since they all support the text. Most significantly, this
play about community took a strong and brilliant community of
actors to embody the characters and bring this world to life.
The excellent acting is, as always, all the actors' own.
It’s the 400th anniversary
of Shakespeare’s death, and I did not choose a Shakespeare play
for the festival. I believe Shakespeare himself would
approve of this choice. In the last year, there have been
countless appalling violent deaths (the night club shooting in
Florida and the Bastille massacre in Nice.) As Shakespeare did, we
are striving to speak to our community, in this time. Only through
love and charity can the cycle of fear, violence and alienation be
overcome.
--Taurie Kinoshita
|