Review: Vana O'Brien is a Witch to be Reckoned with in BROOMSTICK, at Artists Rep

What is a witch? Does that strange old woman want to put a curse on you and eat you in your sleep, or is she just misunderstood? These questions are central to John Biguenet's BROOMSTICK, now playing at Artists Repertory Theatre.

BROOMSTICK is a one-woman play in which a witch reminisces about her life. It moves seamlessly through fantasy and reality. At times, the witch is a character straight out of a fairy tale, who may or may not be the type to trap and eat little children. Other times, she's just an old woman who for various reasons has chosen to live alone in the woods. It is by turns timeless (it could be taking place 100, 1000 or 3000 years ago) and set in a definite time and place - the present, with the Witch looking back on her childhood in the American south.

This fairytale vs. reality aspect is what I liked most about the play. It has the effect of uniting all women throughout history and literature who have ever been witches or accused of being witches. The Witch of BROOMSTICK is the would-be child-eater from Hansel and Gretel, all of the innocent young women burned at the Salem witch trials, and the mysterious old woman down the street who has too many cats.

Clearly, if you are going to do a one-woman play about all witches ever, you need to bring in the big guns. And that's exactly what Artists Rep has done in casting the venerable Vana O'Brien in the role. O'Brien is a force to be reckoned with. She transforms - from misunderstood to frightening, from innocent to guilty, from someone you want to hug to someone you want to run away from, and back - so quickly that you never quite get the full measure of her. Kristeen Willis Crosser's gnarled set and the dim, shifting lighting both contribute to the feeling that the Witch is a woman you will never really know. Which is, I think, the whole point.

The one weakness of the play is (and just sometimes) the timing. It's a 90-minute, no-intermission performance, which is a great deal to ask of an actor to begin with. But occasionally, particularly in the beginning, it feels a little rushed. I wanted a touch more mood-setting activity. The timing is also impacted by the fact that the play is written in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets. Though I'm a huge fan of plays written in verse, I sometimes felt that the verse imposed a structure that prevented the lines from flowing perfectly freely.

Overall, I thought it was a fascinating play and I enjoyed letting Vana O'Brien draw me into the fairy tale-real life mashup for the evening. If you get a chance, go check it out.

BROOMSTICK runs through November 22. Get tickets at www.artistsrep.org.

Photo credit: Owen Carey

To post a comment, you must register and login.