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‘John Proctor Is the Villain’ Review: Broadway Play Is a Powerful, Pop-Inflected Retort to ‘The Crucible’
Kimberly Belflower's play is a powerful, pop-inflected primal scream against the patriarchy and a searing retort to "The Crucible."
Beth (a tender and hilarious Fina Strazza) is our passionate yet unsure Mary Warren; the faithful but betrayed Raelynn (Amalia Yoo, subtle and sincere) acts as an adolescent Goody Proctor; and Shelby ( Sadie Sink, of “Stranger Things”) is a Gen Z Abigail Williams. As this happens, eerie techno is pumped in by sound designer and composer Palmer Hefferan while Natasha Katz’s lights and Hannah Wasilkeski’s projections flicker, subtly highlighting details in the classroom in a horror-adjacent scenographic move. Despite this lack of temporal distance, Belflower nonetheless retains great clarity about the historical happenings of the #MeToo movement, including the complexities and messiness, the rapid spread of feminist fervor, the wrongdoings both large and small, the urgent imperative to (finally start to) believe women, and the sometimes scary speed of cancel culture.
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