“The Goodies”
Dec. 1-10
When a BBC reporter was actually thick enough to ask Woody Allen, of all people, his thoughts on the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the beloved filmmaker who allegedly assaulted his seven-year-old daughter expressed his concern over a “witch hunt atmosphere.” Women hear that a lot, often from men who enjoy telling people coming forward about abuse to calm down in hopes they themselves may appear more reasonable in their inappropriate or downright harmful behavior. Disclosure of abuse and harassment—and let’s remember that studies show fabricated allegations of sexual assault to be rare—isn’t a witch hunt. You know what is though? Actually hunting down women accused of performing black magic. That really happened, as we know, in Massachusetts in 1692-’93 in one of history’s most literal and catastrophic examples of society’s demonization of women. In an aptly-timed production, Iron Crow Theatre has devised an original play that sets the Salem Witch Trials in modern-day America, starring a cast of all women of color. In seeing the trials isolated from the Puritan extremism in which they originally unfolded, perhaps we’ll find how our modern culture still fosters attitudes that mystifies and destroy those who have no power. Dec. 1-10, Baltimore Theatre Project, 45 W. Preston St., (410) 752-8558, ironcrowtheatre.org, $15-$30.