The couple enjoys a secret married life but are dogged by Bosola, who has been hired by the Duke Ferdinand to spy on the Duchess. Instead, the Duchess falls in love with Antonio her steward and they elope. The witty, kind and noble Duchess refuses to follow her brothers – the corrupt and sinister Cardinal and Duke’s – requests (demands) not to remarry. Like most Jacobean revenge tragedies, the plot here is action-packed even though Wright and Rickman have cleverly abridged the text to 1 hour and 45 minutes. Through clever cinematography designed by Stuart Read, Creation Theatre’s Zoom-production of The Duchess of Malfi achieves a fun, campy tone while still respecting the reality of violence at the play’s centre. But it also has a Duke who thinks he’s a wolf, murder, a finale rivalling the bloodshed in the final scene of Hamlet – and, under Laura Wright and Natasha Rickman’s direction, plenty of jazzy transition sequences and trippy lighting. It’s a tragedy, it’s filled with gory violence, themes of misogyny and abuse, and it adeptly explores the politics of marriage in the seventeenth century. John Webster’s 1614 revenge tragedy is, frankly, fun.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |