Rich in historical detail but lacking in theatrical magic, The Ungodly is oft-times tough going at Southwark Playhouse
“It’s affinity, not consanguinity, that binds us together”
One of the reasons that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is so enduringly powerful as a play is that it is as much about other things (in this case McCarthyism) than it is about 17th century witch trials. It’s a lesson that you sense that Joanna Carrick has noticed while researching and writing her play The Ungodly but as she also directs here, it hasn’t necessarily been put fully into practice.
Rather than Salem, Massachusetts, The Ungodly is set in the village of Mistley in the northeastern tip of Essex during the English Civil War in the 1640s where the self-proclaimed Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins lived. Through parish records and court reports, Carrick posits a historical case for how he was able to stoke such a terrible turn of radicalised hatred that led to hundreds of deaths.
Deeply religious and socially awkward as a young man, we see him exploit the tragic losses experienced by his step-sister Susan and her husband Richard. As they lose their fourth infant child, Matthew plays on their grief and the wider hardships being suffered all around, like failing harvests and suggests that witchcraft could be at play, giving them a target for a misguided sense of vengeance.
It’s a concept full of potential and rich as the historical detail is, Carrick’s direction doesn’t quite imbue the production with the theatrical magic it needs in order to fully breathe. Pacing is turgid, too many scenes rely on exposition dumps and there’s an overemphatic sense of doom that does the play little favour. There’s hints of contemporary allusions to conspiracy theories and trial by gossip or social media but not enough to make them sing.
Nadia Jackson and Christopher Ashman as Susan and Richard do a great job in depicting their descent into radicalisation but Vincent Moisy is allowed little room to build subtlety into Hopkins’ own conversion. It’s a substantial gap which theatrical license could have filled if historical detail was missing; instead there’s just rising hysteria from the off in his increasingly hardline positions. Rei Mordue’s Rebecca as the key victim of his manipulations similarly suffers in the lack of exploration of her character, despite powerful work from her.
