Sock ’n’ Buskin’s latest production, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, opened last weekend, and continues its run from Jan. 28—Jan 30. The play is co-directed by two journalism students, Keith Hickey and Jake Pitre. Both actors appeared in last year’s Sock ‘n’ Buskin’ production of The Mouse That Roared, and this is the directorial debut of both students. The Charlatan spoke to the pair on flipping a classic, collaborating with the cast, and what characters they identify with.
The Charlatan (TC): To start off, how are things going?
Jake Pitre (JP): Good, going well.
TC: How has it been directing for the first time in your lives?
JP: It has been very stressful but very exciting at the same time. I knew that I wanted to do this with Keith from the beginning because I knew it would be too much to handle by myself, and the two of us work really well together. We agree on pretty much everything, and it’s been going pretty smoothly.
TC: So was putting on this particular play your idea and then you brought Keith into it?
JP: Yeah, I brought up The Crucible and then we came up with the twist that we have on it together.
TC: So what is that twist?
JP: Our twist I guess is that we have a very specific aesthetic that we try to achieve. We had a vision of telling the story in a different way because lots of people learned it in high school or whatever, and they’re very familiar with it. At the same time, directors are always having a re-imagining of an old play and it’s boring, so we wanted to have a purpose behind it, so we decided to go with a goth aesthetic. So everyone is in goth costumes, goth makeup, there’s techno music and strobe lights and all this crazy stuff. It happens to coincide with our idea to have this idea that’s so tightly knit around one certain kind of thing, and yet it still is wracked by intolerance and ignorance.
TC: As far as scenes go, scenes that you’re excited to bring to life and have other people see, are there any specific moments?
JP: Oh yeah! I’m very excited for the opening of the play, because we decided to add a ritual scene to the very start, which does not obviously exist in the script. It’s basically going to be a bunch of people onstage in costumes dancing around in smoke and strobe lights and techno music blaring out of the speakers. It’s basically a sensory overload moment, and it’s going to be cool.
TC: So Keith, how is it looking to you now from when you first started putting it together?
Keith Hickey (KH): Well, from the first time Jake and I started brainstorming the idea of it, we were together in our living room just sort of figuring out exactly how we wanted to make that aesthetic work that Jake described of the modern goth, [with] emphasis on this witch-house sort of music style. The first time we imagined it, we imagined it in a smaller venue, and it’s continued to grow and grow. The way it’s become, I couldn’t have even imagined how good it would end up looking. A lot of it looks super powerful, super unique and cool, and I’m proud of that.
TC: And what has it been like telling actors what to do instead of being told what to do?
KH: It was a very interesting learning process and one that I’m very appreciative to have gotten the opportunity to do. Something that you begin to learn are ways that you can make other people use their ideas for the set, because everyone has really good feedback. It’s not a good way to be director where you just sit there and tell everyone exactly the way you want it, because a lot of people have been able to flesh out their characters in ways that I didn’t necessarily think of until they approached me and Jake. It’s important to keep everybody’s voice heard during the process and that was important for me to learn during the process.
TC: Who do you identify most with in the story and why?
KH: I identify most with, well, identify is a strange word because I don’t mean I see myself in that character, but it’s the character that I appreciate the most, and also think is the most complex, and that’s Elizabeth Proctor [played by Molly McGuire]. I think there’s a lot going on with her character. She’s very human at times, she’s very cold at times, and every single motivation that she has throughout the play and every action she has throughout the play is completely understandable and relatable. Watching her journey through the entire show is quite heartbreaking at times.
JP: Like Keith said, I don’t think there’s any character that I particularly see myself in, but the character that I feel the most close to would be Abigail Williams. I think that in the past when people consider this character, they’re very negative towards her and that’s kind of the reason I wanted to tell the story in a little more of a different way. I think that there’s a lot of visceral emotion in that character that people don’t appreciate, and I hope that we’re able to bring that out. I think that Jasmine Stamos, who plays that character, is doing a good job at doing that, so that’s been really exciting.
The Crucible is playing in Kailash Mital Theatre from Jan. 28—Jan. 30.
