Now that women’s bodies have become a political and legal battleground, it seems a good time to revisit Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Puritan tale of the shunned and shamed Hester Prynne. Reworked for Two River Theater by Kate Hamill — who is the go-to twenty-first century American playwright for theatrical adaptations of consequential nineteenth century novels — “The Scarlet Letter” has been turned into a largely satisfying, intensely-acted, streamlined (and live-streamed*) ninety minute stage play. Despite its relative brevity, the drama allows enough nuance so that, while none of the characters’ behavior  is completely admirable, nobody comes off as an unmitigated villain. (There is, though, an excessively scary puppet.)

The play, like the novel, begins in 1642, when we first dimly glimpse Hester Prynne (Amelia Pedlow), kneeling on a scaffold, pregnant, being flogged.

In the next scene, Goody Hibbins (Mary Bacon),  the wife of the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, explains to a newcomer, Roger Chillingworth (Kevin Isola), that Mistress Prynne is being punished because she has been impregnated by a man who is not her husband, a man Hester refuses to name. Her husband had sent Hester to Boston before him from “the old country” to await his arrival, but he never arrived, and is presumed dead.

As it happens, however, Chillingworth is that very husband. He was (as we eventually learn) the only survivor of a shipwreck in shark-infested waters, where each voyager had to fight the others to stay alive because there was not enough food to go around. Once arriving in the colony, too ashamed of what he had seen and done to go straight to his wife, he traveled the settlements, making amends by becoming a doctor. “I learned to heal, instead of kill,” he tells his wife. 

Such a back story makes it harder to paint Chillingworth as the incarnation of evil, even as he  demands that Hester keep his identity secret, and functions as one of the play’s chief antagonists, vowing to unmask (and ruin) the father of her child.

Similarly, although Goody Hibbins tries repeatedly to make life worse for Hester, we are made to understand that she is driven to such vitriol by her bitter grief, after an endless series of miscarriages make her realize that, unlike Hester, she will never be a mother. Both Bacon and Isola invest their roles with enough subtlety and depth to help us grasp these grace notes in their otherwise discordant characters.

 Keshav Moodliar has the more central, and more complicated, role of Reverend Dimmesdale. For those who have not read Hawthorne’s novel (which was first published in 1850, so you’ve had plenty of time), consider this a spoiler alert: Dimmesdale is the father. His guilt and shame – for the sin of loving Hester, but also for the sin of his silence afterward – are supposed to be so monumental as to make him ill and desperate.  Moodliar is certainly handsome enough for the role, but his was the least convincing performance among the six-member cast. While yes he showed us some suffering, what he seemed to suffer from most is leading man syndrome – which is to say, a priority put on good posture and precise diction.

Luckily, “The Scarlet Letter” is largely Hester Prynne’s story, and Amelia Pedlow is riveting in the role, with many colors in her performance — restrained, dignified, passionate, and also endlessly patient with her horror of a daughter, Pearl. Much of the play takes place four years after her public shaming, when she lives in an isolated cabin away from the city, dutifully wearing the state-mandated, letter “A” in red and gold thread that she embroidered herself. Four-year-old Pearl, isolated from anybody except her mother, has turned into a wild and disobedient child. This is no different from Hawthorne’s novel, but this production has made Pearl a puppet, manipulated by puppeteer Nikki Calonge.  There are unquestionably some humorous moments in Pearl’s recalcitrant ripostes. Calonge is also a pro I greatly admire; she performed  in two of my favorite shows (not just two of my favorite puppet shows) of the past year —  Life of Pi on Broadway and Psychic Self Defense. I am also a fan of the puppet designer James Ortiz, who created  the astonishing life-sized dinosaur and woolly mammoth in the 2022 Broadway production of The Skin of Our Teeth. But the Pearl that Ortiz has created and Calonge voices is creepily reminiscent of…well, for starters, Chucky – so when she puts on a monster voice, or rants “I love sin, I love sin, I love sin,” the effect feels far less naughty child than horror-movie extreme, and thus distracting in a way that the creative team surely did not intend.

Two River Theater is in Red Bank, N.J., easily accessible from Manhattan, including by public transportation. (The theater is a one-minute walk from the Red Bank train station.) But I was able to see a live-stream of this production by the League of Live Stream Theater (which I’ve been doing with increasing frequency —  most recently, earlier this month, Wilma Theater’s production of  My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion ) I suspect I missed out on the full effect of some of Philip S. Rosenberg’s superb lighting design. But, even on my computer screen, the power of this production shined through the darkness.

The Scarlet Letter
Two Rivers Theater through Feb 25th. 
*Live-streaming through February 18
Running time: 90 minutes no intermission
Tickets: $32.50-$82.50. Live-stream: $49
By Kate Hamill
Based on the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Directed by Shelley Butler
Scenic design by Takeshi Kata, costume design by Sara Ryung Clement,  hair and makeup design by Roxanne de Luna, lighting design by Philip S. Rosenberg, sound design and music by Kate Marvin, puppet design by James Ortiz, puppetry by William Gallacher, fight and intimacy coordinator Rocio Mendez and Alex Might.
Cast: Mary Bacon as Goody Hibbins, Nikki Calonge as Pearl, Kevin Isola as Chillingworth, Keshav Moodliar as Dimmesdale, Amelia Pedlow as Hester Prynne, Triney Sandoval as Governor Hibbins
Photos by T Charles Erickson