Of all the shows to not have a land acknowledgment! If your historical play is not only set in a colonial setting, but directly parroting colonial viewpoints in its dialogue, you need to address that. The all-White cast of characters bring up a missionary-type trip to the West Indes, telling the story of a Black “witch”, and question whether angels can be Black. The main character adamantly reinforces his family’s entitlement to the land they own in Massachusetts, that their family has owned it for generations, rebuking the idea of others owning it after his death. These are all deeply colonial ways of thought that are accurate to religious settlers at the time and place, but the playwright wrote this in contemporary times—so why no contextual note which could easily fit into a land acknowledgment, before or after the show?

That aside, this show needed a director who was not the playwright (a common gripe of mine) or some outside dramaturgical support. The blocking, lighting, and lack of music was strange. The lighting was essentially a white, cold, almost-spotlight on the center of the stage. I was baffled to see actors walk to the sides of the stage during their lines, into darkness where we could barely make out their faces.

I also questioned the intention of the script in having witches be real. Historical witch burnings in New England happened due to systemic complexities, often rooted in sexism, homophobia, religious prejudice, etc. To turn around and say witches were real is to justify the practice of witch burnings, because some of them were truly “guilty”—a questionable idea at best when discussing the mass miscarriage of injustice against, usually, disenfranchised populations. This seems to be a significant oversight for a play that was so interested in asking ethical questions.

I also questioned the motivation of the main character. He spends so many lines insisting upon his family’s ownership of the land they farm. The wife, too, validates this even as she acknowledges she is a first generation immigrant to the land. Then, the husband turns around and encourages his wife to abandon their land and flee?

Finally, the climax is Scooby-Doo levels of wacky deus ex machina. I was dumbfounded and jarred from what was, until then, generally a contemplative piece. I unfortunately started laughing because I was so shocked, and the end immediately distracted from any other thoughtful turns of phrase and philosophical discussions that I had enjoyed before that.

To end with the good, I think the performances of the leads (the husband and wife) are great, unconvincing stage combat aside. I would love to see them in something else in the future. There are also some beautiful moments of dialogue and spoken metaphor that I quite enjoyed. I wish those impressive elements hadn’t been dampened by many other missteps.