Again within the seventeenth century, in a chic home run by Girl Elizabeth (Lydia Leonard) and a handful of feminine servants, steady woman Agnes (Alison Oliver) is a witch with lofty social ambitions. In a Faustian pact with Elizabeth (who, it’s prompt, has herself bought her soul to the Satan), she helps her mistress safe the legacy of her grand home.
A male inheritor is required so Elizabeth’s brother Edward (Leo Invoice) is witchily married to the virginal however keen Catherine (Ioanna Kimbook).
Alas, though Unsteady Eddie is joyful to boff servant ladies, he’s reluctant to carry out conjugal duties together with his spouse. In the meantime, England is getting ready to civil struggle.
There isn’t any scarcity of concepts in Raczka’s play however none of them are developed.
The boundaries of feminine empowerment in a patriarchy, the fallacy of permanence, and social-class divisions are all themes floating like driftwood that by no means comes collectively to kind a stage-worthy vessel, despite Rupert Goold’s usually clean-limbed route.
And the way is it attainable to fireplace three photographs from a double-barrelled shotgun with out reloading? Witchcraft, in all probability.
- Girls, Beware the Satan, Almeida Theatre, London, till March 25. Tickets: 020 7359 4404
