John Proctor Is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower. Directed by Danya Taymor. Scenography by Amp, featuring Teresa Williams. Costume design by Sarah Laux. Lighting design by Natasha Katz. Sound design and original composition by Palmer Hefferan. Projection design by Hannah Wasileski. Hair and make-up design by J. Jared Janas. Movement by Tilly Evans-Krueger. Intimacy direction by Ann James. Voice, Text, and Dialect coach Gigi Buffington. Dramaturgy by Lauren Halvorsen.
Cast: Sadie Sink, Nihar Duvvuri, Gabriel Ebert, Molly Griggs, Maggie Kuntz, Hagan Oliveras, Morgan Scott, Fina Strazza, and Amalia Yoo.
Theater: Booth Theatre
Tickets: Telecharge.com

Sadie Sink and Cast Photo by Julieta Cervantes

Pardon if you know this much already, but John Proctor was a real person. In 1692, he was tried and convicted of witchcraft and subsequently hanged, a target of the Salem Witch Trials. Proctor reappeared many years later as a central character in Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible, which shapes the historical story into an allegory and cautionary tale of the then ongoing scourge of McCarthyism and its own baseless and sanctimonious "witch hunt" for alleged perpetrators of subversive activities. The expression "witch hunt" has never gone out of style with certain U.S. government officials, so having John Proctor Is the Villain set in 2018 is most germane.

If you read The Crucible in high school or have seen it performed, it is likely you were led to think of Proctor as a kind of tragic hero, unwilling to kowtow to the false accusations and injustice of it all. That Proctor was a flawed character in his own story is not overlooked, but the "flaw" of carrying on an adulterous relationship with a young servant in his household was never the point of the story.

Until now, that is, for that point is most relevant to John Proctor Is the Villain, which takes place in an honors lit class in a rural Georgia high school. That's where we meet up with the gifted, genial, and appealing teacher, Carter Smith (Gabriel Ebert, a Tony recipient for his performance as Mr. Wormwood in the musical Matilda), and his smart and thoroughly engaged students (well, at least the girls) who are immersed in a study of The Crucible.

Facts may be facts, but it is the interpretation and the relative weight placed on those facts that make all the difference in determining the "meaning" of a text. And the young women in Mr. Smith's class, who are sufficiently steeped in the then-burgeoning #MeToo movement to have started their own informal feminism club, do not buy into the Proctor-as-martyr scenario.

Morgan Scott and Nihar Duvvuri Photo by Julieta Cervantes

Playwright Kimberly Belflower is inordinately gifted in capturing the content, the tone, the rhythms of speech, and the vocabulary of teenage girls, and even of the classroom management style of gifted if terribly flawed teachers who know how to relate to their students and bring out the best in them. But the success of this production rests most on the shoulders of the amazing group of young women who portray the students and bring both the classroom scenes and their informal gatherings so believably to life. Indeed, it is a compliment to director Danya Taymor to say it almost seems as if she has stood back and told the cast to just act naturally.

First among equals here is Sadie Sink (fans of the Netflix horror series "Stranger Things" will instantly recognize her as "Max") as the unpredictable Shelby, who has just returned to school after an absence of several months. Smart as a whip if something of a mystery, a little scary even, Shelby carries a secret that threatens to blow things up. But also terrific are her classmates, played by Morgan Scott, Fina Strazza, Maggie Kuntz, and Amalia Yoo, and the school's counselor, played by Molly Griggs.

Playing the less-rounded boys are Hagan Oliveras as the creepy Lee, who does not understand the notion of boundaries or what it actually means to be supportive, and Nihar Duvvuri ("Balthazar" in the recent Broadway production of Romeo + Juliet), who makes the most of playing the dorky Mason.

John Proctor Is the Villain is truly a most engaging play, with a terrific ensemble cast that makes even discussions about The Crucible thoroughly engrossing. And this is true whether or not you believe the declarative statement made by the title. Or what you make of a dance as defiant as the one in Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa. Or what you think of the singer Lorde's song "Green Light." This is a world that, at least for a time, belongs to Shelby and her classmates. Not since Sarah DeLappe's 2016 play The Wolves, about a girls' soccer team, has the stage been graced with such a believable ensemble of young women interacting in such authentic-seeming ways.