The Duchess of Malfi- The Old Vic, London, 2012
With the exception of a version in Northampton featuring madrigals, Webster's grisly Jacobean masterpiece has been poorly served in recent years. But Jamie Lloyd has come up with that comparative rarity these days: a classical revival that delights in the original's language and period setting. And Eve Best gives a compelling performance that measures up to such past duchesses as Helen Mirren and Harriet Walter.
The first pleasurable shock is on confronting Soutra Gilmour's massive set: a dark, labyrinthine mix of palace and prison calling to mind the sombre Italian engravings of Piranesi. And, although the production has its share of masked candlelit processions, the emphasis is on the central spiritual conflict.
On the one hand, there is the nihilist view of life as "a general mist of error", as expressed by Bosola and embodied by the corrupt Calabrian princes, Ferdinand and his brother, a cardinal. Against that there is a Christian concept of endurance and fortitude symbolised by the duchess, who, in marrying her steward, arouses the wrath of her violent siblings.
You can play it as an all-out chamber of horrors piece justifying Shaw's description of Webster as the "Tussaud laureate". But I was struck by the restraint of Lloyd's production: the moment when the unhinged Ferdinand gives the duchess a severed hand is swathed in darkness. And when he presents her with a wax image of her supposedly dead husband and child, she has the good taste to keep her back to it.
At the same time, the production makes sexually explicit the incestuous passion of Ferdinand for his sister, and it is unafraid to show the reality of death: not since Hitchcock's Torn Curtain have I seen a strangling as protracted and plausible as the duchess's.
It is Best, however, who is the star. From her first entrance, bathed in light, she offers a symbolic contrast to the rank gloom of court life. There is also growth in her performance. She is playful, skittish and occasionally imperious with her secret husband, Antonio. But Best shows how through adversity the duchess gains moral stature. With a stricken horror, she repels Ferdiand's lustful kisses, and she greets death not with operatic defiance but stoical patience. Nothing is more moving than when she turns to her executioners and simply says, "I forgive them." The grand duchess, in Best's hands, is shown finally to be a humble woman.
For a secret intelligencer and court spy, Mark Bonnar's Bosola seems oddly determined to shout his discoveries to the four winds; but, like Best, he conveys the character's moral progress. Harry Lloyd, on the other hand, captures Ferdinand's decline into wolf-impersonating insanity with a chilling quietude and avoidance of rant. Finbar Lynch as his brother suggests all the cardinal vices and has the right air of cold concupiscence, and there is sure support from Tom Bateman as a naive steward who finds himself drawn into this world of aristocratic violence.
But the chief pleasure lies in encountering a production that, for all its incense-laden atmosphere, allows Webster's aphoristic poetry to do its vital work.
-Michael Billington, The Guardian
The first pleasurable shock is on confronting Soutra Gilmour's massive set: a dark, labyrinthine mix of palace and prison calling to mind the sombre Italian engravings of Piranesi. And, although the production has its share of masked candlelit processions, the emphasis is on the central spiritual conflict.
On the one hand, there is the nihilist view of life as "a general mist of error", as expressed by Bosola and embodied by the corrupt Calabrian princes, Ferdinand and his brother, a cardinal. Against that there is a Christian concept of endurance and fortitude symbolised by the duchess, who, in marrying her steward, arouses the wrath of her violent siblings.
You can play it as an all-out chamber of horrors piece justifying Shaw's description of Webster as the "Tussaud laureate". But I was struck by the restraint of Lloyd's production: the moment when the unhinged Ferdinand gives the duchess a severed hand is swathed in darkness. And when he presents her with a wax image of her supposedly dead husband and child, she has the good taste to keep her back to it.
At the same time, the production makes sexually explicit the incestuous passion of Ferdinand for his sister, and it is unafraid to show the reality of death: not since Hitchcock's Torn Curtain have I seen a strangling as protracted and plausible as the duchess's.
It is Best, however, who is the star. From her first entrance, bathed in light, she offers a symbolic contrast to the rank gloom of court life. There is also growth in her performance. She is playful, skittish and occasionally imperious with her secret husband, Antonio. But Best shows how through adversity the duchess gains moral stature. With a stricken horror, she repels Ferdiand's lustful kisses, and she greets death not with operatic defiance but stoical patience. Nothing is more moving than when she turns to her executioners and simply says, "I forgive them." The grand duchess, in Best's hands, is shown finally to be a humble woman.
For a secret intelligencer and court spy, Mark Bonnar's Bosola seems oddly determined to shout his discoveries to the four winds; but, like Best, he conveys the character's moral progress. Harry Lloyd, on the other hand, captures Ferdinand's decline into wolf-impersonating insanity with a chilling quietude and avoidance of rant. Finbar Lynch as his brother suggests all the cardinal vices and has the right air of cold concupiscence, and there is sure support from Tom Bateman as a naive steward who finds himself drawn into this world of aristocratic violence.
But the chief pleasure lies in encountering a production that, for all its incense-laden atmosphere, allows Webster's aphoristic poetry to do its vital work.
-Michael Billington, The Guardian
Sometimes Brothers Can Be Too Protective of a Sister- The Red Bull Theater, 2012
When it comes to Renaissance-era tales of forbidden love set in Italy, Juliet had it easy.
Her relatives might not have been terribly supportive of her choice in men, but at least they didn’t send killers and spies her way. Nor were they so upset that she wanted to marry beneath her station that they tossed her in prison. The title character in John Webster’s “Duchess of Malfi” paid dearly for not heeding the warnings of her bullying brothers Ferdinand (Gareth Saxe) and Cardinal (Patrick Page), and the resulting bloodbath is so vastly out of proportion that it makes you wonder why this 17th-century drama hasn’t been turned into a feminist exploitation movie.
The Duchess could be played as a caged bird with reined-in passions, but in the muddled production by the Red Bull Theater, Christina Rouner brings an imperial coolness to the boiling drama. “The misery of us that are born great!” she says with notes of entitlement and self-pity. “We are forced to woo because none dare woo us.”
This messy feast of a play blends genres, hints at enough political, religious and sexual themes to suggest all kinds of modernizing possibilities and incorporates some truly preposterous twists. While Jesse Berger’s sleek staging showcases a capable cast with a sure sense of diction, the production remains a bit undercooked. The style is a kind of wishy-washy modern minimalism.
Jared B. Leese’s costumes are contemporary but sometimes off point (a white jacket seems from the 1980s), Beowulf Boritt’s set design is modest and elegant and the stage pictures clean. There were several technical glitches on the night I attended, but the main problem with the show was not its errors so much as a lack of a clear focus.
The second act includes appearances of a werewolf and a severed limb — prodigious, sensational macabre excesses that are neither subtly psychological nor laughably over-the-top. (For a much better dead hand, see “A Behanding in Spokane.”) The performances, besides the precise work of Ms. Rouner, are well-spoken but broad and devoid of eccentricity.
The Red Bull should be given credit for avoiding cheap gimmicks, but there’s a lack of a point of view that, because the play itself is so absurd, allows the flamboyance of the violence to become unhinged from its impact, turning what could be brutal tragedy into occasionally unintentional comedy. With more time the show could gain its footing, but for now it appears in the process of being explored rather than already discovered.
Jason Zinoman, The New York Times, (http://theater2.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/theater/reviews/09duchess.html)
Her relatives might not have been terribly supportive of her choice in men, but at least they didn’t send killers and spies her way. Nor were they so upset that she wanted to marry beneath her station that they tossed her in prison. The title character in John Webster’s “Duchess of Malfi” paid dearly for not heeding the warnings of her bullying brothers Ferdinand (Gareth Saxe) and Cardinal (Patrick Page), and the resulting bloodbath is so vastly out of proportion that it makes you wonder why this 17th-century drama hasn’t been turned into a feminist exploitation movie.
The Duchess could be played as a caged bird with reined-in passions, but in the muddled production by the Red Bull Theater, Christina Rouner brings an imperial coolness to the boiling drama. “The misery of us that are born great!” she says with notes of entitlement and self-pity. “We are forced to woo because none dare woo us.”
This messy feast of a play blends genres, hints at enough political, religious and sexual themes to suggest all kinds of modernizing possibilities and incorporates some truly preposterous twists. While Jesse Berger’s sleek staging showcases a capable cast with a sure sense of diction, the production remains a bit undercooked. The style is a kind of wishy-washy modern minimalism.
Jared B. Leese’s costumes are contemporary but sometimes off point (a white jacket seems from the 1980s), Beowulf Boritt’s set design is modest and elegant and the stage pictures clean. There were several technical glitches on the night I attended, but the main problem with the show was not its errors so much as a lack of a clear focus.
The second act includes appearances of a werewolf and a severed limb — prodigious, sensational macabre excesses that are neither subtly psychological nor laughably over-the-top. (For a much better dead hand, see “A Behanding in Spokane.”) The performances, besides the precise work of Ms. Rouner, are well-spoken but broad and devoid of eccentricity.
The Red Bull should be given credit for avoiding cheap gimmicks, but there’s a lack of a point of view that, because the play itself is so absurd, allows the flamboyance of the violence to become unhinged from its impact, turning what could be brutal tragedy into occasionally unintentional comedy. With more time the show could gain its footing, but for now it appears in the process of being explored rather than already discovered.
Jason Zinoman, The New York Times, (http://theater2.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/theater/reviews/09duchess.html)
Brecht's The Duchess of Malfi, Chicago Actors Ensemble, 1988
I'd been looking forward to this production of The Duchess of Malfi. I'm a big fan of Jacobean drama, the sensationalist and decadent splatter movies of the early 17th century. Not only that, this is a production of Bertolt Brecht's adaptation of the John Webster classic, an adaptation that W.H. Auden helped out on. But from the very first moment--when an actor entered, slammed the double doors behind him, and shouted an introduction to the play and the company--I had a sinking feeling. To say that this show is a fiasco would be too extravagant. This show is a flop.
For Brecht himself, The Duchess of Malfi is a bad scene that just got worse. The original impetus for the adaptation was to fashion a star vehicle for a German actor (Elisabeth Bergner) who was married to the producer. After several drafts, Auden joined in the project. Three years later, the show opened on Broadway to damning reviews. Since Brecht's name was mysteriously absent from the program and therefore not mentioned in the reviews, Auden took the fall. Maybe Brecht foresaw it all going down the tubes. I don't know. He certainly had a knack for squirming out of uncomfortable situations, from Nazi Germany to the HUAC investigations.
Basically, the Brecht/Auden adaptation is a streamlined version, ironing out the plot, unknotting the gnarly Jacobean dialogue, and adding a prologue (lifted from John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore) that explicitly reveals Duke Ferdinand's lust for his sister, the Duchess of Malfi. The central plot is more or less unchanged. The duke gets jealous and kills the duchess's second husband, Antonio. Then the duke kills his brother, the cardinal, for branding their sister a whore. His blood lust yet unslaked (pardon the pun), the duke has the duchess executed, and is, in turn, murdered by the executioner. If you're familiar with Webster's original, you can see that the plot is jacked around somewhat, but, in the end, the body count is pretty much the same. The major innovation here is the simplification of Webster's complicated and confusing plot, so the play is now more accessible. The drawback, however, is that the formerly complex characters have become rather shallow.
But, fret not--Chicago Actors Ensemble has exacted revenge upon Brecht and Auden for their merciless reduction of Webster's original by making a few innovations of their own. Each act and scene is annoyingly announced by a member of the cast, which, I suppose, amounts to director Steve Gusler's conception of Brecht's epic theater. Also, the play now opens and closes with a chant (definitely not gregorian, as that may have required some research) of Kyrie Eleison four times, not three, which is just enough to confound any Catholic in the audience and make Brecht roll over in his grave and puke. Also, in this production the duchess has two children rather than three, who are played by a reluctant boy and a swaddled baby doll. Haphazard cuts in the script somewhat accommodate this trimming down of the duchess's family, yet you still wonder how that rubber infant is going to "say her prayers ere she sleep." But these are minor problems compared to the overall performance itself.
Particularly irritating is Rick Helweg as Duke Ferdinand. Even though the duke's motivations are clear and simple in this adaptation, Helweg doesn't grasp so much as an iota of the duke's incestual lust. Helweg's Duke Ferdinand has two humors, neither of which makes much sense. He either looks like he's under sedation, studying the floor and playing with his fingers, or he's the epitome of unfocused rage, roaring and garbling his speech while staring into space like someone who's lost his glasses--Mr. Magoo in a crisis.
Chris Coldoff (as Antonio, the duchess's husband) is none too lusty himself. He looks less like the bourgeois courtier Brecht intended than an accountant in a beautician's smock. And Eric Ronis (as Delio, Antonio's cousin) gives an absurdly histrionic performance inflated by a self-important rhetorical style that reminded me, especially in the epilogue, of Paul Harvey. The unlusted-for duchess is played by Phila Broich, who shows more determination than skill in creating her character, even if she has to damn well do it in a vacuum. But the duchess, which is the only role that remains as demanding and rich as it was in Webster's original, is simply beyond Broich's reach at this point.
Kit Carson's performance (as the cardinal) caught me by surprise. In the first act, Carson is phlegmatic, bored, like a kid forced to sit through a long, dull Thanksgiving dinner. But late in the second act, and continuing up to his untimely death, the cardinal shapes up as a cynical, greedy, and even humorous villain. Lines like "I am puzzled in a question about Hell," and "How tedious is a guilty conscience!" have a reflective silliness to them. I only wish this side of the cardinal had emerged earlier, as it's a great minor role.
Jamie Eldredge gives far and away the best performance as Bosola, the intelligencer, which is a Jacobean term for spy. Eldredge plays Bosola as a flat-out low-life slimeball, a villain for all seasons. Eldredge is sharp, generally consistent, and delectably low, yet his performance suffers from one major flaw. It's a mystery why Bosola continues to serve the duke when he has a golden opportunity to take the duchess's jewels and run. Later, Bosola confesses "though I loath'd the evil, yet I lov'd him that did counsel it." And that's the problem--you never see Bosola's love or admiration for the duke.
Of course, you never see a lot of things in this show, which is the fault of Steve Gusler's amateurish direction. There's no blocking or physical imagery worth mentioning; actors just hang around like randomly placed traffic cones. Scenes rarely have a point, and when they do, the point is ludicrous. In the scene where Bosola travels to the war in Cyprus to give the duke news of the duchess's sex life, the duke's response is completely obscured by some low-budget mayhem, with the entire ensemble running around and screaming. What's the point? And in the scenes that call for violence and horror, especially the murder scenes, Gusler resorts to ridiculous gimmicks like strobe lights and recordings of sci-fi madrigals. But Gusler's grossest negligence is in his direction of actors. Even the most fundamental relationships--whether they're based on love, lust, admiration, or envy--are fumbled. Most of all, the tension, intrigue, and implied threat, which are the real guts of Jacobean drama, are lost while Gusler is trying to figure out which knee a courtier is supposed to genuflect on.
So, you'll have a better time if you check the play out of the library and read it. There's no reason to put yourself through this, unless perhaps you want to feel the pain and horror, instead of watch it on the stage.
-Tom Boeker, The Chicago Reader, (http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-duchess-of-malfi/Content?oid=872032)
For Brecht himself, The Duchess of Malfi is a bad scene that just got worse. The original impetus for the adaptation was to fashion a star vehicle for a German actor (Elisabeth Bergner) who was married to the producer. After several drafts, Auden joined in the project. Three years later, the show opened on Broadway to damning reviews. Since Brecht's name was mysteriously absent from the program and therefore not mentioned in the reviews, Auden took the fall. Maybe Brecht foresaw it all going down the tubes. I don't know. He certainly had a knack for squirming out of uncomfortable situations, from Nazi Germany to the HUAC investigations.
Basically, the Brecht/Auden adaptation is a streamlined version, ironing out the plot, unknotting the gnarly Jacobean dialogue, and adding a prologue (lifted from John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore) that explicitly reveals Duke Ferdinand's lust for his sister, the Duchess of Malfi. The central plot is more or less unchanged. The duke gets jealous and kills the duchess's second husband, Antonio. Then the duke kills his brother, the cardinal, for branding their sister a whore. His blood lust yet unslaked (pardon the pun), the duke has the duchess executed, and is, in turn, murdered by the executioner. If you're familiar with Webster's original, you can see that the plot is jacked around somewhat, but, in the end, the body count is pretty much the same. The major innovation here is the simplification of Webster's complicated and confusing plot, so the play is now more accessible. The drawback, however, is that the formerly complex characters have become rather shallow.
But, fret not--Chicago Actors Ensemble has exacted revenge upon Brecht and Auden for their merciless reduction of Webster's original by making a few innovations of their own. Each act and scene is annoyingly announced by a member of the cast, which, I suppose, amounts to director Steve Gusler's conception of Brecht's epic theater. Also, the play now opens and closes with a chant (definitely not gregorian, as that may have required some research) of Kyrie Eleison four times, not three, which is just enough to confound any Catholic in the audience and make Brecht roll over in his grave and puke. Also, in this production the duchess has two children rather than three, who are played by a reluctant boy and a swaddled baby doll. Haphazard cuts in the script somewhat accommodate this trimming down of the duchess's family, yet you still wonder how that rubber infant is going to "say her prayers ere she sleep." But these are minor problems compared to the overall performance itself.
Particularly irritating is Rick Helweg as Duke Ferdinand. Even though the duke's motivations are clear and simple in this adaptation, Helweg doesn't grasp so much as an iota of the duke's incestual lust. Helweg's Duke Ferdinand has two humors, neither of which makes much sense. He either looks like he's under sedation, studying the floor and playing with his fingers, or he's the epitome of unfocused rage, roaring and garbling his speech while staring into space like someone who's lost his glasses--Mr. Magoo in a crisis.
Chris Coldoff (as Antonio, the duchess's husband) is none too lusty himself. He looks less like the bourgeois courtier Brecht intended than an accountant in a beautician's smock. And Eric Ronis (as Delio, Antonio's cousin) gives an absurdly histrionic performance inflated by a self-important rhetorical style that reminded me, especially in the epilogue, of Paul Harvey. The unlusted-for duchess is played by Phila Broich, who shows more determination than skill in creating her character, even if she has to damn well do it in a vacuum. But the duchess, which is the only role that remains as demanding and rich as it was in Webster's original, is simply beyond Broich's reach at this point.
Kit Carson's performance (as the cardinal) caught me by surprise. In the first act, Carson is phlegmatic, bored, like a kid forced to sit through a long, dull Thanksgiving dinner. But late in the second act, and continuing up to his untimely death, the cardinal shapes up as a cynical, greedy, and even humorous villain. Lines like "I am puzzled in a question about Hell," and "How tedious is a guilty conscience!" have a reflective silliness to them. I only wish this side of the cardinal had emerged earlier, as it's a great minor role.
Jamie Eldredge gives far and away the best performance as Bosola, the intelligencer, which is a Jacobean term for spy. Eldredge plays Bosola as a flat-out low-life slimeball, a villain for all seasons. Eldredge is sharp, generally consistent, and delectably low, yet his performance suffers from one major flaw. It's a mystery why Bosola continues to serve the duke when he has a golden opportunity to take the duchess's jewels and run. Later, Bosola confesses "though I loath'd the evil, yet I lov'd him that did counsel it." And that's the problem--you never see Bosola's love or admiration for the duke.
Of course, you never see a lot of things in this show, which is the fault of Steve Gusler's amateurish direction. There's no blocking or physical imagery worth mentioning; actors just hang around like randomly placed traffic cones. Scenes rarely have a point, and when they do, the point is ludicrous. In the scene where Bosola travels to the war in Cyprus to give the duke news of the duchess's sex life, the duke's response is completely obscured by some low-budget mayhem, with the entire ensemble running around and screaming. What's the point? And in the scenes that call for violence and horror, especially the murder scenes, Gusler resorts to ridiculous gimmicks like strobe lights and recordings of sci-fi madrigals. But Gusler's grossest negligence is in his direction of actors. Even the most fundamental relationships--whether they're based on love, lust, admiration, or envy--are fumbled. Most of all, the tension, intrigue, and implied threat, which are the real guts of Jacobean drama, are lost while Gusler is trying to figure out which knee a courtier is supposed to genuflect on.
So, you'll have a better time if you check the play out of the library and read it. There's no reason to put yourself through this, unless perhaps you want to feel the pain and horror, instead of watch it on the stage.
-Tom Boeker, The Chicago Reader, (http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-duchess-of-malfi/Content?oid=872032)
Killer passions rule 'Duchess' to rich effect- Actor's Shakespeare Project, Boston, 2009
At a risky time for theater companies, the members of the Actors' Shakespeare Project must have known they were taking an even bigger risk by staging, for the first time in their five seasons, a play by someone other than William Shakespeare. Happily, it's a gamble that pays off.
"The Duchess of Malfi" is not, of course, a completely uncalculated risk for the company. Because it was written by Shakespeare's contemporary John Webster, it draws from the same deep linguistic well - and it has what may be an added attraction for today's audiences, an even deeper well of blood and vengeful passion.
It has also, so far as anyone can remember, never received a professional production in Boston. In this academically and culturally prideful town, that's kind of incredible, and the novelty may be enough to attract a few more ticket buyers.
But the best reason to see this "Duchess of Malfi" is that David R. Gammons is directing it. Both in ASP's "Titus Andronicus" a couple of years ago and in "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" at New Repertory Theatre earlier this season, Gammons has shown that he knows exactly how to stage a gorefest, with or without buckets of blood. So it's not surprising that his "Duchess of Malfi" has plenty of violence, but not a drop more than it needs.
This is a Jacobean revenge tragedy, after all, so it is required by statute to litter the stage with dead bodies, an objective it achieves by increasingly grotesque and unlikely means. If there's another drama that kills off a character by having her kiss a poisoned book, I can't think of it just now.
Yet even that implausible demise makes perfect sense here: Gammons lets us see, without quite noticing at the time, the deliciously evil Cardinal (played, deliciously, by Joel Colodner) slip something out of his pocket and rub his Bible with it just before proffering it to his victim. It's a small touch, but it's typical of the intelligent care this production uses to guide us through the sometimes dense thickets of Webster's plotting, character development, and dark poetry.
For Webster is not, actually, Shakespeare. His plots conceal their creaks less adroitly, his characters contradict themselves less plausibly, and his lines, though full of striking images, rarely achieve the crystalline complexity of Shakespeare's best. (Well, whose does?) But Gammons has slashed the text with abandon, leaving all the juiciest bits and also highlighting the stark central tale: The wealthy, widowed Duchess of Malfi, against the wishes of her brothers (that nasty Cardinal and his equally nasty and much crazier brother, Ferdinand), secretly marries her steward, Antonio, touching off a series of schemes and slayings that will culminate in the aforementioned corpse-strewn stage.
Gammons sets all this on a long, narrow runway down the middle of the handsomely rugged basement space at Midway Studios, with heavy paneled doors looming at either end and the audience arrayed, like spectators at a grisly tennis match, on both long sides of the stage. We can't help watching the other spectators as well as the action, and their expressions of shock, wincing pain, or incredulity become part of the play itself.
As for the action onstage, it is bold and visually dramatic, with a heightened stylization that feels exactly right for the extreme passions boiling throughout. From the first image - the Duchess, swathed in black veils, gazing impassively at us from center stage - through the crisp deployments of servants, the feverish swirling of a madmen's dance, the curiously beautiful execution with thick scarlet ropes, and on to the final deadly tableau, each moment is at once an arresting image and an action charged with energy.
Anna-Alisa Belous's sumptuous but controlled costume design, using rich fabrics in a tightly limited palette, heightens the visual drama, as does Jeff Adelberg's severe lighting; Cameron Willard completes the tensing of our nerves with an eerie soundscape of whispers and lunatic screams. The design work gives the actors a whole richly imagined world to play off, and they respond with intensely realized work. Jennie Israel and Jason Bowen are charming as the doomed Duchess and her consort, Colodner and Michael Forden Walker despicable as the Cardinal and Ferdinand, and Bill Barclay as Bosola, the conflicted spy, displays complexity and a sometimes startling wit.
There are reasons "The Duchess of Malfi" isn't as well known as "Hamlet" or "King Lear." But there's no reason not to get to know it now.
-Louise Kennedy, Boston Globe, (http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2009/01/13/killer_passions_rule_duchess_to_rich_effect/)
"The Duchess of Malfi" is not, of course, a completely uncalculated risk for the company. Because it was written by Shakespeare's contemporary John Webster, it draws from the same deep linguistic well - and it has what may be an added attraction for today's audiences, an even deeper well of blood and vengeful passion.
It has also, so far as anyone can remember, never received a professional production in Boston. In this academically and culturally prideful town, that's kind of incredible, and the novelty may be enough to attract a few more ticket buyers.
But the best reason to see this "Duchess of Malfi" is that David R. Gammons is directing it. Both in ASP's "Titus Andronicus" a couple of years ago and in "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" at New Repertory Theatre earlier this season, Gammons has shown that he knows exactly how to stage a gorefest, with or without buckets of blood. So it's not surprising that his "Duchess of Malfi" has plenty of violence, but not a drop more than it needs.
This is a Jacobean revenge tragedy, after all, so it is required by statute to litter the stage with dead bodies, an objective it achieves by increasingly grotesque and unlikely means. If there's another drama that kills off a character by having her kiss a poisoned book, I can't think of it just now.
Yet even that implausible demise makes perfect sense here: Gammons lets us see, without quite noticing at the time, the deliciously evil Cardinal (played, deliciously, by Joel Colodner) slip something out of his pocket and rub his Bible with it just before proffering it to his victim. It's a small touch, but it's typical of the intelligent care this production uses to guide us through the sometimes dense thickets of Webster's plotting, character development, and dark poetry.
For Webster is not, actually, Shakespeare. His plots conceal their creaks less adroitly, his characters contradict themselves less plausibly, and his lines, though full of striking images, rarely achieve the crystalline complexity of Shakespeare's best. (Well, whose does?) But Gammons has slashed the text with abandon, leaving all the juiciest bits and also highlighting the stark central tale: The wealthy, widowed Duchess of Malfi, against the wishes of her brothers (that nasty Cardinal and his equally nasty and much crazier brother, Ferdinand), secretly marries her steward, Antonio, touching off a series of schemes and slayings that will culminate in the aforementioned corpse-strewn stage.
Gammons sets all this on a long, narrow runway down the middle of the handsomely rugged basement space at Midway Studios, with heavy paneled doors looming at either end and the audience arrayed, like spectators at a grisly tennis match, on both long sides of the stage. We can't help watching the other spectators as well as the action, and their expressions of shock, wincing pain, or incredulity become part of the play itself.
As for the action onstage, it is bold and visually dramatic, with a heightened stylization that feels exactly right for the extreme passions boiling throughout. From the first image - the Duchess, swathed in black veils, gazing impassively at us from center stage - through the crisp deployments of servants, the feverish swirling of a madmen's dance, the curiously beautiful execution with thick scarlet ropes, and on to the final deadly tableau, each moment is at once an arresting image and an action charged with energy.
Anna-Alisa Belous's sumptuous but controlled costume design, using rich fabrics in a tightly limited palette, heightens the visual drama, as does Jeff Adelberg's severe lighting; Cameron Willard completes the tensing of our nerves with an eerie soundscape of whispers and lunatic screams. The design work gives the actors a whole richly imagined world to play off, and they respond with intensely realized work. Jennie Israel and Jason Bowen are charming as the doomed Duchess and her consort, Colodner and Michael Forden Walker despicable as the Cardinal and Ferdinand, and Bill Barclay as Bosola, the conflicted spy, displays complexity and a sometimes startling wit.
There are reasons "The Duchess of Malfi" isn't as well known as "Hamlet" or "King Lear." But there's no reason not to get to know it now.
-Louise Kennedy, Boston Globe, (http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2009/01/13/killer_passions_rule_duchess_to_rich_effect/)