Review: A Tryal of Witches
The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds’ spring production is A Tryal of Witches, a brand new drama written by Suffolk playwright Tallulah Brown.
“Tryal of Witches” is set in the summer of 1654 and is performed by an all-female cast of six (well seven as a younger role is shared between two young actresses).
Manningtree on the Essex/Suffolk border was home to the self-appointed Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins. Hopkins witnessing the fear of witchcraft started a crusade to rid the world of it, picking up a sizeable bounty into the bargain. It could be said that Hopkins was willing to find evidence and gain confessions to prove the accusations of witchcraft, seizing on facts and maybe distorting them to prove guilt, without him, there may not have been an increase in accusations.
This was a simpler time with less understanding of people who were different and therefore allowing Hopkins’ to use the mere fact that sometimes people are different or eccentric, this also fuelled by superstition, into something far more than that.
Much has been written and dramatised in the past about Hopkins but this production centres around the women themselves. Well six of them, there were many more who were to find themselves accused and punished as witches, when as we now know they were merely different and falsely accused by Hopkins’ tales that enflamed suspicion and fear.
The story of the women is further helped by atmospheric original music composed by the band Trills.
These ordinary women, a young pregnant girl and her mother, a midwife, friends are soon thrown into a situation totally out of their control and the rope of suspicion gets tighter and tighter.
Brilliantly written and performed, A Tryal of Witches plays at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds until 22nd March. Suitable for teens upwards (due to some of the content), but this is definitely one to watch and one that deserves a much wider audience.
Box Office 01284 769505 or www.theatreroyal.org
Review: Mark Keable, Ipswich24 Magazine