A Tryal of Witches review – an enthralling memorial to Suffolk’s persecuted women

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The past sings to the present in Tallulah Brown’s new play with music, exploring the persecution of women during Suffolk’s 17th-century witch trials. But Brown wisely leaves us to draw our own parallels, bucking a trend for overly didactic historical drama that lurches into the modern day. Instead, the story remains rooted in the local landscape and the writing wears its research lightly as Brown bears witness to how fractured societies seek scapegoats and subordinates, especially under the influence of a small man longing for supremacy.

Such is its portrayal of Matthew Hopkins (Emily Hindle, from an all-female cast of six), who made a small fortune as the self-styled Witchfinder General – “like he’s a soldier, except he’s not,” observes gimlet-eyed Anne Alderman (Claire Storey). Anne tends to the townspeople like she does her garden, and Brown supplies a virtual index of medicinal herbs – a reminder of the lost knowledge of such female healers targeted as witches.

Women rely on Anne for abortions as well as midwifery: promptly after her entrance, she dives headfirst under the covers to inspect Mary (Shaniya Hira), about to deliver her baby, and urges the young woman to keep a poppet close for comfort. That’s precisely the kind of paraphernalia hunted out by Hopkins and his accomplice John Stearne (Hira, doubling roles like most of the cast) who close in on the community’s women while, Brown stresses, so many of the men are away fighting.

Lean scenes exposing the political, religious and class schisms of the civil war are interlinked by songs from Brown’s band Trills, composed by Seraphina D’Arby and sung by the cast. Refrains lap like waves (“I will rock you, I will raise you”), combining elements of folk and protest music, lullabies and hymns. These are compositions that provide not just mood but also momentum as the tale begins to grip.

Owen Calvert-Lyons’ production opens with the women singing in the aisles, and the notion of a wider community is further enhanced by the canny use of sphere-headed clothing stands resembling iron figures, looming on either side of the stage, where we watch the cast switch between costumes. Under Sally Ferguson’s honeyed lighting, the rest of Jessica Curtis’s set has an austere elegance, its timber frame evoking tavern, households and courtroom, and finally put to devastatingly stark use.

Brown’s dialogue for women living in the deadly shadow of misogyny has a similar resonance to Charley Miles’s superb Yorkshire drama There Are No Beginnings, about the terror wrought by Peter Sutcliffe, in which the killer is refused a role. It’s arguable that this play’s impact would also be heightened by omitting or reducing the part of Hopkins, given fluttering fingers and an airy obsessiveness by Hindle in an eerie performance. This Hopkins is a callous and feeble opportunist – but it means there is little spark to the series of clashes in the second half.

The supporting roles, in a roundly well acted production, find Lucy Tuck veering from comedy to menace and Rachel Heaton establishing a febrile atmosphere of fear and suspicion. Brown explores the link between control of the land and of women’s bodies, depicting a world where a holy man’s prayers and not a woman’s tinctures are the approved form of female pain relief.

Brown’s compelling theatrical remembrance to the women – and men – who died is also a brilliant bit of programming. This local story was heard around the world (Suffolk’s trials were later referenced at Salem); the play will surely reach audiences further afield too.