A blind spot in my theatre education has always been Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. I knew what it was about and understood the general gist of what he was doing with the play but I was never asked to read it and never felt the need to.
Then came John Proctor Is the Villain. I never was a big Miller girl to begin but I began to hear the rumblings of how great the new play was. What I was not expecting was to see the play and be so completely changed by what I was engaging with. Set in 2018 Georgia, the Kimberly Belflower play throws us back into a high school classroom.
**Spoilers for John Proctor Is the Villain ahead**
It’s a simple premise: A class is learning about The Crucible and one of their classmates, Shelby (Sadie Sink), comes back to school after sleeping with her best friend’s boyfriend. The dynamics of their high school friendships mirror that of Miller’s play and the one act story twists and turns in completely unexpected things. But one thing is mad very clear: John Proctor is not a hero.
Having since watched the 1996 film version of Miller’s work, I understand what the girls in Mr. Smith’s class were saying about John. He wants to die with his honor and keep his name as his own and he’s willing to literally die just to prove a point. So I kind of agree with the kids in Mr. Smith’s class about him!
But what John Proctor Is the Villain did that really captivated me was show everyone what female rage really looks like. For all our talk of “girlhood,” the final moments of this play highlight the reality of them so much better than any of these “girlie” movies have.
Who hasn’t felt every emotion to Lorde?
Shelby and Raelynn (Amalia Yoo) have to go through so much to get to a place where the two actually talk to each other. Shelby reveals that Mr. Smith had an affair with her, his student who is under age, and the “witch hunt” in their own lives is everyone in this small town trying to paint Shelby as a liar. But both Shelby and Raelynn are granted the chance to do their interpretative project for the class (even though Shelby can no longer be in Mr. Smith’s class).
Mr. Smith comes back to school, has no real consequences, and Shelby is the one who has to now go to summer school to avoid his classroom. But their final project is an exploration of two women wronged by the same man and the freedom they find within each other. Shelby and Raelynn play Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor (two characters who do not speak to each other in the play) and the two have a conversation about John.
But both girls end their scene with an interpretative dance to the song “Green Light” by Lorde, a call back to a scene earlier in the play. The song is almost not important but what is is the idea behind it. These two girls are taking the time to express their rage, their upset, their joy, and their tears all through dance. There is no rhyme or reason to the way they’re dancing towards the end, it is just a way to get out those frustrations.
To me, that is a kind of token of “girlhood” that often gets ignored. The joy that comes with just letting out all of your emotions through jumping around, dancing with your friends? It’s beautiful and I thank John Proctor Is the Villain for it.
(featured image: Julieta Cervantes)
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