FringeReview UK 2024
The Ungodly
Red Rose Chain
Genre: Biographical Drama, Drama, Historical, New Writing, Theatre, Tragedy
Venue: Southwark Playhouse Little Studio, Borough
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
There’s been a gout of plays round witchcraft recently. The Ungodly which playwright Joanna Carrick also directs in her own Red Rose Chain company production is different, and special. No wonder it transfers to Off-Broadway next spring. An outstanding piece of theatre.
After its debut at Ipswich, makes its London premiere at the Southwark Playhouse Little Studio, directed by Carrick till November 16th .
Review
There’s been a gout of plays round witchcraft recently, often ingenious sidelights on the mid-17th century’s unholy obsession with it. Joanna Carrick’s The Ungodly which she also directs in her own Red Rose Chain company production is different, and special. No wonder it transfers to Off-Broadway next spring.
After its debut at Ipswich, The Ungodly makes its London premiere at the Southwark Playhouse Little Studio, directed by Carrick till November 16th .
The Ungodly takes on the sparsely-documented brief life of Matthew Hopkins (c.1620-47), styled Witchfinder General but not by the authorities. Just who might give him his name is where Carrick’s approach is meticulous and revealing. As 125 minutes unfold, its relevance is chilling.
Susan Edwards (Nadia Jackson) is first seen grieving the loss of her dead sister’s child. Then after stout resistance, comically realised as he boyishly presses his claims, she suddenly succumbs with passion to her three-year suitor Richard Edwards (Christopher Ashman). Indeed her change of heart cannot be entirely due to him coming unexpectedly into property, since Richard was always well-to-do. But they’re a prominent Suffolk couple, with influence and opposition. Even more, Susan loses four children.
They’re both so rational that guest stammering boyish late teen Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Moisy) and his witchy obsessions have no impact on them, grieving as thy do. Carrick’s particularly strong on showing just how resilient the warm Richard and sceptical Susan are, who in Jackson’s hands can turn steely resolve in sexual warmth and then steely common-sense too.
Jackson conveys in telling shifts just how intense Susan’s passions are, driven by the plain logic she sees – even reasoned against her own grief – and the logic of the times. These, though in civil wars and panic, are increasingly difficult to verify.
Ashman’s Richard is a fine constant: a man who wants to think well of himself and the world of him: but whose genuine care for those around him shines out. He refuses easy answers and particularly to manufacture blame. Events and their interpretations overtake both of them.
Moisy’s performance is a stunning tour-de-force. The youngest son of a clergyman, Matthew’s stammer shows visceral misogyny only checked by Susan, and slowly reveals his mettle. His voice firms, his bearing rears itself from stoop to high-stepping. He in truth is the imp feeding as a succubus off the grief of his kind hosts: a psychic vampire emboldened by their blood.
Latham has sourced exactly the boots we see in engravings and if you know it or find it, there’s a sartorial coup at the end. Moisy’s Matthew – cowed by Richard’s anger near the end of the first act (Ashman on towering form) – gradually gains ascendancy over the couple who took him in and gave him the living of an alehouse. But will it last?
Jackson in particular is much preoccupied with stage business, folding sheets as others bring in news, which being a four-hander is limited to report. Jump-cuts in how Susan warms to Richard, and the limited use of the fourth character mean certain themes circle. It doesn’t make it less compelling.
Only in the second act do we see Rei Mordue hunch their way into Rebecca West’s 18-year-old sheer fright. Daughter of an accused but acquitted witch, Rebecca finds Matthew’s line of questioning only allows her a way out through incrimination. Mordue adroitly suggests someone starved of both education and support, whittled into alleys of confession. It was a line the authorities themselves later opposed. At his point the husband and wife press for answers of their own.
Katy Latham’s design of some bewitchingly authentic furniture and lamps the tenebrous scene like a De La Tour painting where all’s revealed in candlelight. Latham’s provided period costumes including bonnets, and deployed lighting design to stunning effect: nowhere more so than in act Two where a grille of light plays on a young woman in front of a darkened table functioning as desk as two scenes play simultaneously. This, with unfussy but superbly-sourced materials is the way to turn the Little into a chamber of terrors. Flagstone effects and straw striate the floor, and a more conventional minimalist piano theme ripples occasionally.
Carrick shows the denouement as an aftermath of regrets, even regression. Richard shows his best side, and Susan’s initial fury slowly gives way. A sense of buyer’s remorse haunts questions: Jackson and Ashman are viscerally outstanding as a couple warped by circumstance. What Matthew has done to this marriage, what the times wreak everywhere, play out as the candlelight drops. An outstanding piece of theatre.