Art Smitten: Reviews - 2016

To anyone who's been holding out for a good theatrical sequel, Roberto Aguire Sacasa's Abigail/1702 is the latest member of that rare species. Picking up 10 years from the ending of its predecessor, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Sacasa plucks out Miller's two-faced antagonist, Abigail Williams, and turns her into a very successful protagonist. The past decade has transformed the jealous young girl into a desperately puritanical young woman. Once a fierce denouncer in the Salem witch trials who sent 20 people to their deaths over a tumultuous affair with John Proctor, the married man she once worked for, she now lives on a farm in Boston. She has abandoned her now infamous name and adopted the new identity of a god-fearing farmer and nurse, which she hopes will drive away Satan's hold on her. So far she has been successful. After all these years of living in a modest little hut, surrounded by dense forest and countless iron crosses, the Devil has not come to reclaim her. However, the arrival of a handsome woun