What’s interesting about The Witch of Edmonton?
Guy Clark is taking on the role of Frank in our Digital Theatre production of The Witch of Edmonton, he’s also a history buff and a lover of early modern drama. Here’s his take on what the show has in store:
I recently found myself trying to explain the concept of witchcraft to a child. Quite tricky as it happened. She’s a bright student of our modern, secular education system and she simply refused to believe that this could have ever been a popular idea. No amount of explaining about different systems of belief or a lack of modern medicine would get past her cast-iron defense, “But it doesn’t make sense!” One of the reasons I’ve always loved history – and one of the reasons I think audiences will love this play – is that actually, yes, it made complete sense. The characters in The Witch of Edmonton do some pretty extraordinary – and often unpleasant – things. The genius of the play is that it lays each out as the most logical, rational option available at the time.
The play was first performed in 1621. This was during the reign of King James I & VI, who had written a book on the dangers of witchcraft in 1597 and also believed that witches had tried to kill him at least once. Shakespeare capitalised on James’ fear of witches by making them the central fright-factor in Macbeth – first performed in 1606. In 1611, the King James Bible – a new translation of the bible into english – made a very significant editorial decision. A word in the original Latin that could mean “sorcerer”, “shaman” or a number of other things, is translated as “witch”. The finished line of Exodus 22:18 is “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
The genius of the play is that it lays each [action] out as the most logical, rational option available at the time.
Contemporary England was at the height of its paranoia about witches. They were real, and if left unchecked they could do untold damage to a community. Dekker, Rowley and Ford wrote this play the same year its protagonist, Elizabeth Sawyer, was hanged for witchcraft. The amazing thing about what they wrote is that it is far from a simple, moral tale of Edmonton VS The Evil Witch. It’s a visceral, knotty drama about community and exclusion, privilege and poverty and very few of its characters escape unscathed.
Another thing that has been extremely refreshing is who actually gets to speak in this play. Shakespeare will often intermix his A plot (the nobles tearing off on quests of romance or revenge) with a B plot of rustic ‘ordinary folk’. All of Edmonton would find themselves the B plot of a Shakespeare play. Here they take centre-stage. Our protagonist is a poverty-stricken old woman living on the edge of a rural town. Our cast consists of farmers, young working women and, yes, one debt-ridden local gent. Their concerns are more recognisable in many ways. Rock bottom is much closer and their standing in the town is a matter of life or death.
The female roles in The Witch of Edmonton are particularly interesting for a modern audience. We are shown the abuse Elizabeth Sawyer suffers for existing outside traditional female social roles, and we see the sacrifices that many women of Edmonton make to hold onto those roles and not fall foul of their community.
I’m a giant history nerd and I find the play’s thematic underbelly extremely exciting. But TheWitch of Edmonton is also an extremely creepy folk-horror play chock full of black magic and violence. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just as excited about that…
The Witch of Edmonton runs from 5th – 20th March, performed live online. Tickets are £20 per device and you can join a live audience all over the world at 7:30pm GMT.
To see the show’s trailer head here
To Book Tickets pop over to the show page
To hear some other reasons it’s going to be great, try Lucy’s video