Review

“Vinegar Tom”
Workshop 360

British playwright Caryl Churchill remains a favorite daughter
of the American feminist theater movement, and it’s no wonder
since her plays resonate with an uncommon power ““ her works
take a scalpel to humanity and strip the world naked to its
patriarchal core. Churchill chews up the fabric of society and
spits out the vile bile.

“Vinegar Tom,” while important to Churchill’s
canon, is performed far less than the playwright’s seminal
“Cloud 9,” and Workshop 360’s version, currently
playing at the Electric Lodge in Venice, is a reminder why.

It’s not Workshop 360’s fault that, bereft of its
whimsical musical elements and its avant-garde trappings,
Churchill’s play reads and plays like a poor man’s
“Crucible.”

For a play featuring Puritan period witch-hunting, the narrative
similarities to Arthur Miller’s allegorical masterpiece,
while not exact, are difficult to avoid. Churchill acknowledges as
much.

In a key moment, the accused mother, Joan (L. Zane), is asked
why she shouldn’t be hanged as a witch. “I’m with
child,” she replies directly and not without comedy, a
reference to events in Miller’s play. The audience laughs
knowingly in one of the performance’s few light moments.

Zane, also the play’s director, deals deftly with the
different elements of the play even though they ultimately never
quite come together.

The quality of the work is most obvious when the audience is
forced to step outside the play. It’s almost as if Zane
wanted the message to be discovered even though it’s
video-fed to the audience at the play’s end.

Abstract dance bits, tightly choreographed by Kate Hutter, are
effectively set against a sparse, almost primal percussive
soundtrack provided by the resident live band.

Led by singer Cela Scott, the band literally takes center stage
during the musical numbers, which feature the actors joining in on
vocals. These sequences are well done (apart for one unforgivably
awful rap), with Churchill’s lyrics dripping with her
signature wit and caustic irony.

Unfortunately, a sameness creeps into both music and dance,
making them less effective as the night wore on.

As a vehicle showcasing the talents of the company’s young
principal actresses, Tasha Ames and Azizah Hodges, “Vinegar
Tom” could be considered a qualified success, of sorts. But
apart from Zane and a Daniel Day-Lewis/Proctor-like sizzling
opening scene from Ben Messmer, the rest of the cast barely rate
mention.

However, this may have more to do with Churchill’s bland
characterization than with the actors themselves.

On the whole, Workshop 360 has positioned itself as a new
company willing to take risks for the sake of its convictions,
which bodes well for the group.

-Alex Wen