Sarah Ruhl’s play, Becky Nurse of Salem, is a history lesson and a feminist reminder for 2024. The play being staged by Shattered Globe Theatre stars Chicago actor Linda Reiter as a woman beset by modern-day woes who seeks help from a bewitching source.
Director Polly Noonan, her cast and crew have created a production that offers audiences a complex but satisfying mix of comedy, tragedy and romance in two acts. Unfortunately, Ruhl’s plot features so many interesting historical and theatrical plot points that the play goes off the rails; focusing the plot more tightly on its present-day characters would strengthen the drama.
Becky Nurse is a knowledgeable but outspoken docent at the Salem Museum of Witchcraft in present-day Salem, Massachusetts. As the play opens, she’s welcoming a student group to the museum with her own script plus choice historical tidbits, some that parents might think too saucy for teenaged ears.
The play is her story—of losing her job, of grief over losing her daughter to an opioid overdose, and of trying to protect her granddaughter Gail, who comes home with Stan, her Goth Wiccan boyfriend. (The couple are engagingly played by Isabella Maria Valdes and Diego Rivera-Rodriguez.) Becky also realizes she still yearns for a married man she has loved since they were teenagers—Bob (Ramón Camin), who owns the bar where she hangs out. And she is still haunted by the fact that her ancestor, Rebecca Nurse, was one of the women hanged for witchcraft in 1692 Salem.
Early in the play, Becky loses her job because Shelby, the multi-degreed museum director, can’t abide Becky going off-script in her docent discourse. Shelby (Hilary Williams) is a practical leader who prefers to operate according to plan, rather than with Becky’s random excursions into history.
Desperate to find a new job, Becky seeks help from a witch, played with physical and aural abandon by Rebecca Jordan. (My plus-one, who believes in witches, thought Jordan went too far in her physical choreography, but to me she looked witchy enough.) For a substantial fee, the witch’s sorcery will find Becky a new job, keep track of her orphaned granddaughter—and as a bonus, rekindle her teenaged romance. However, the witch warns it may not be easy, because “I see that you have some bad luck in your life, caused by a curse, way back.” Becky admits, “My great-great-great-great grandmother is Rebecca Nurse.” Oh no, that’s bad, the witch responds. Nevertheless, Becky goes into debt to pay the witch. And she soon finds that using the witch’s advice and wizardry equipment has unexpected results.
Playwright Ruhl uses Arthur Miller’s 1953 play, The Crucible, as an historical backdrop for these events with occasional critiques of Miller’s script. (It also becomes a Salem high school production.) Miller said the play was about McCarthyism and the blacklist. But Ruhl thinks it was about a private matter too (relating to Marilyn Monroe).
And just in case you thought women forgot about the 17th century witchcraft trials and their grisly conclusion, the present again reminds us of the past. One of the many angry signs carried in the 2017 women’s protest march, held the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated, says: “We are the Granddaughters of the Witches You Could Not Burn.” (Let’s hope we don't have to create that sign again next January.)
To emphasize that point, the play incorporates those horrifying chants from the 2016 campaign; act one ends with pilgrim women chanting “Lock her up! Lock her up!”
Linda Reiter is brilliant as Becky Nurse; it’s a role she fully inhabits. The full cast, with solid and playful direction by Polly Noonan, creates a little magic and may have you believing in witches too.
Jack Magaw’s very simple set design works well in one of the smaller Theater Wit spaces. A lectern becomes a bar, then becomes the judge’s bench and a police desk. Benches serve multiple purposes and are easily moved. Christine Binder’s lighting design creates a solid mood and original music by Andre Pluess is just spooky enough. Costumes are by Jessie Gowens. Tina M. Jack is stage manager.
Becky Nurse of Salem by Shattered Globe Theatre continues at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave., through November 16. Running time is two hours with one intermission. Tickets are $15-$52 for performances Thursday-Sunday.
For more information on this and other plays, see theatreinchicago.com.
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