A review by beforeviolets
The Witch of Edmonton by Thomas Dekker, John Ford, William Rowley

I have not seen the word "Bow-wow" written out in earnest since I was probably five years old.

This was a decently fun tragicomedy and I would absolutely love to see this staged–it would be such a fucking blast if treated as the campy piece it's meant to be.

In terms of rhetoric: I really enjoyed and was frankly impressed by the way this play confronts the construction of biases in the system of witch hunts–who gets labelled as a witch and who gets condemned as a witch. I was not really expecting it to go that hard with the social commentary. Very convenient as a historical account of the early modern view of witches! Thanks guys!

As a piece of entertainment, oh boy am I obsessed with this little slippery prankster demon Dog. He felt like a cool and dark twist on the fool archetype mixed with Puck from Midsummer and he just was such a delicious character. I can only imagine how much of a joy he would be to play. I want him to be in every play actually.

I do wish the actual witch of Edmonton herself had more to do with the main events of the story; she seemed to kind of exist to rant about misogyny and class (and eloquently so, but) or to justify the presence of the Dog, and I think she should've been allowed to have some fun in the plot, goddamnit!