Eyam
Shakespeare's Globe, London

WHEN the plague arrived in 1665 at the Peak District village of Eyam, the villagers took the heroic decision to close their gates and ride out the effects rather than flee and spread the contagion in Derbyshire. Thirteen months later, only 83 of its 356 inhabitants had survived.

Don Taylor’s Roses of Eyam first brought this communal sacrifice to the stage in the 1970s, but Matt Hartley’s new play for the Globe removes the idealised gauze. His villagers are hard products of the mines, poverty and civil war and internecine disputes rage — imagine The Crucible written by Jimmy McGovern.

Sam Crane’s idealistic, rather insipid reverend arrives at his new parish with his strong-willed and supportive wife (Priyanga Burford) to find the previous churchman has been lynched. There is a long-time contender for his role and the villagers are at each other’s throats.

Before the interval the large cast generate a sense of a community at war with itself. Spleen, invective and vitriol dominate the open stage, spilling into the audience in the pit before the plague enters as masked figures in black. Moments of contrast with wild dances, slashes of humour and Norah Lopez-Holden's effusive performance as the love-smitten Emmott help to alleviate this abrasive world.

Director Adele Thomas avoids sentimentality as the isolated and decimated village is gradually drawn together in the face of adversity and the women become the heart and soul of the community. We begin to warm to some of the curmudgeonly characters and grieve the deaths of the more appealing individuals.

There are moments of high drama — there's a striking image of an early plague victim, Christ-like and naked, covered in boils and rashes and the villagers file off into the backstage blackness, guarded by the embodiments of the plague.

But there are also elements that are less theatrically effective. At three hours it demands too much of an audience not provided with modern comforts and some moments miss their mark, such as the final enumeration of all 273 plague victims which is more notable as a memory feat than a fitting denouement.

But, as an alternate telling of this historic tragedy, Eyam is very much of the now.
 
Runs until October 13, box office: shakespearesglobe.com