BWW Reviews: THE AFFLICTED Takes Another Look at Those Girls from Salem at Capital Fringe

There's no shortage of literary works that explore the still mysterious event in American history - the Salem Witch Trials. What sets The Afflicted apart is that it uses movement and theatricalized personal stories to uncover who the accused really were. This alone was reason enough for me to take on the show now in production by the Wandering Theatre Company at Capital Fringe.

In writer/director Natalie Villamonte Zito's work, a young academic writer (nicely and naturally embodied by Joelle Golda) is seeking to uncover the truth about those Salem girls and share their personal stories with the world. She wants to explore why they were targeted and what really went down. It's clear she also wants to discover the implications of how societal values and norms in place at that time played an enormous part in creating - or at least aiding - the unfortunate situation.

As she conducts her research, the Salem girls (innocently played by Becky Baker, Caitlin Berger, Laura Kiser, Roni Layin, Libby McKnight, Rin Olsson, and Adriana Spizuoco in time-period-specific garb designed by Zito and Amber Wallace) come to life. They're doing everyday things, but through their dialogue we learn that the need to live up to the Puritan ideals very much is on most of their minds at every moment. We learn of the potential role Tituba (the enchanting and graceful mover Claudia Givings) - a dark-skinned women whose origins are contested in the academic and historical literature - in their world and her possible role in the trials. The men of Salem - two fathers, one of whom is a reverend (Joshua Bubar and Christopher Morrell) - are also introduced as people that might have influenced how the situation went down.

Here's the deal. I wanted to like this effort. The idea is noteworthy. Likewise, with the help of lighting designer Christian Steckel (even if the cues were far from flawlessly executed at the production I saw) and set designers Zito and Berger in particular, a beautiful image emerges on stage. The attention to ambient details is particularly evident as the girls gracefully depict their plight through movement set to classical music. However, this production may also have been a case of Zito taking on a bit too much for one person even if the cast deserves many accolades for its nuanced and committed performances (Roni Laytin in particular as the worried reverend's daughter, Betty Parris).

The pieces of the story never really fully come together. Zito appropriately conveys the fact that we'll probably never completely know what happened in Salem but that the affected individuals do need to be remembered. She also evidently wants us to care about the larger religious, cultural, and social influences that played a part - some of which remain in our society today. However, the story is so streamlined and yet has so many loose ends and plot holes that it was hard for me to become fully engaged. Apart from an epilogue of sorts where we find out what happens to the girls, the story just kind of ends with Tituba on the stand at the trial. It's hard to build up any attachment to the girls as one minute they're just girls and the next minute they seem to be possessed.

Perhaps with a bit more division of labor - and the use of a director/dramaturg that is likely not going to be as attached to a play as the one who wrote it - this play could have a future. However, it's not really there yet.

Running Time: 55 minutes.

The Afflicted has one more performance at the Capital Fringe on Sunday, July 21, 2013. For tickets and further show information, see the Capital Fringe website.

Show Graphic: Courtesy of the Production.

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