Salem Village is in peril: Savages lurk in the forest, "afflicted girls" and conjurers embrace Satan, and a demonic hysteria rattles the townspeople. Once a shining city on a hill, Salem has had God's grace snuffed, replaced by haunting darkness.
By the glow of candles and campfires, young Puritan women lead a group of kind strangers down uneven paths. The nervous, wide-eyed girls retell ungodly stories about hangings and infants spawned from Satan.
They chant, "Come witch, come wizard, come Shaman, come French. Come devil yourself! We are the elect."
This is Salem Village of 1692, as presented by Gordon College's History Alive theater program, and the strangers are audience members.
"Spiritways: A Night in Besieged Salem Village" plays Saturday nights in October at Pioneer Village, in Salem's Forest River Park.
"This is a psychological piece, looking through the eyes of these girls (who are) retelling stories and tales they would have heard," said Kristina Wacome Stevick, History Alive's creative director and codirector of Gordon's Institute of Public History.
"Spiritways" is meant to be a full-immersion experience, according to Stevick, who said audiences members will use their five senses — sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste — during the performance.
The play is also a learning tool, said Stevick, and the script is based on documented material from the time.
"I love the research," said Stevick, who co-wrote "Spiritways" with five others and directs the production. "I love trying to make historical material accessible to the general public."
The current script for "Spiritways" — revised from its 2007 version — was written specifically for Pioneer Village, an 11-acre living history museum Gordon has leased until 2013.
Sasha Irish, who plays a tour guide, said the play is accurate, not just scary.
"I like the fact that the show is trying to understand the Puritan mind-set at the time, and what may have caused (villagers) to react with such hysteria," said Irish, a recent Gordon graduate.
According to Stevick, some actors in "Spiritways" are familiar with the witch hysteria of the 17th century because they also appear in "Cry Innocent," another History Alive production running concurrently in Old Town Hall.
Julianne Richards, who acted in "Cry Innocent" for three years, is now a "Spiritways" cast member.
"Acting in 'Cry Innocent,' I had to do a lot of research from 1692 and on the lives of the people in Salem," said Richards, a Gordon graduate, who helped write the original "Spiritways" script in 2007. "It was kind of scary, writing this new thing. We'd never done anything like that before," she said. "It was a really fascinating journey for us all."
