Actors great and small

>> The Crucible is a melting pot of Montreal talent

by AMY BARRATT

A few summers ago, I visited the witch museum in Salem, Massachusetts, site of the infamous 1692 witch trials. In the main exhibit, visitors sat on the floor and looked up at tableaux all around of mannequins dressed as characters from the witch trials, while voice-overs read from letters, trial transcripts and such. (Like most attractions in the tourist trap that is modern-day Salem, it's a bit cheesy, yet eerily effective.)

John Dinning's set for The Crucible, now playing at the Centaur theatre, immediately reminded me of that museum. Dinning has created a two-tiered grid of heavy wood beams that visually breaks the playing area into six cells. Unfortunately, the upper three cells turn out not to be playing area at all, leaving all the action grounded on the one level. It seems a missed opportunity.

Despite Arthur Miller's brilliant script, actors and directors have a great deal working against them in this play: the preponderance of words over action, the colourless palate, the frumpy Puritan garb. Surely some use of levels could have made the production more visually interesting.

That said, Centaur's is a solid Crucible, and McCall must be commended for casting so many local actors. The talented Emma Campbell is an inspired choice as Abigail, and Jennifer Morehouse was born to play Elizabeth Proctor. Genevieve Lavigne makes her English-language debut in the role of Tituba after playing the same role for TNM in '98.

Recent NTS grad Amy Sloan is a memorable Mary Warren, partly, no doubt, due to her striking stage presence (glorious red hair and greater height than many of the men in the cast). But also, whereas Mary is usually played as an unusually timorous girl, Sloan's version is actually possessed of quite a bit of courage, if not quite enough to withstand the terrifying forces set loose in Salem.

A couple of McCall's casting decisions are more puzzling. Jerry Franken is a fine John Proctor, but he is quite a bit too old for the part.

And then, McCall has given two minor roles to what I would consider amateur actors, both of whom are veterans of Centaur's fundraising "lawyer plays." One of them left no impression on me at all and the other struck me as quite amateurish. Were there no real actors available to play these roles? I asked McCall precisely that in a phone call earlier this week.

"They actually are real actors," he responded. "They're non-equity actors." (Union rules dictate that at least 75 per cent of actors in professional productions must be equity members and paid at least scale. Non-equity performers are paid, but at a lower rate). "There are a lot of actors in town," McCall said, "who are full-time but who also have day jobs.

"This is not a money-saving measure at all," McCall added. "We've employed 20 people (for this production). I'm not putting anybody out of work."

There are a lot of English actors in the Montreal area, McCall points out, whose experience to date has been on the "amateur" side. He doesn't see anything wrong with giving these people a shot on the professional stage.

"[Non-equity actors] are not being given roles as favours," McCall said, maintaining that small roles such as the ones in The Crucible, are "a great opportunity for someone who wants to move to the next level in his career."

"I don't think we should be criticized for trying to help people, who are Montrealers, to pursue their dreams." :