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rushthatspeaksThe Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster, Actors' Shakespeare Project, 01/08/09--
(consult![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sovay and nineweaving for other reviews, and hopefully gaudior will write one.)
Short version: it is not my absolutely ideal version of The Duchess of Malfi, but then, no one is going to do that, and how often is this play performed anyhow? It is a very good Duchess of Malfi verging on very, very good, and it is running till February 1st (we saw the very first performance, in previews), and it was well worth trekking all over Fort Point in the dark and cold. If you are Boston-area and remotely interested, you should totally see it.
I would not say this was staged in the round, but I don't know if there is another word for it. The stage was a long narrow ribbon with doors at either end, audience on both sides as if built into the walls. A strip of lights down the middle of the stage flooring. One transparent chair. Chandeliers. Bones, unremarked, under the foot of the staging platform. This they did remarkably well with, I think; at any rate I think slightly more than half the play was at least partially facing us, but the scenes that weren't played equally well from the back, which must have taken a good deal of work in blocking.
Semi-anachronistic costuming-- the principal men especially achieving that timelessness of cut which could be period or a particular aesthetic of modern dress. The Duchess (Jennie Israel) knew how to manage a train and veil naturally and for emotional effect, a skill I admire greatly after my personal experiences with that sort of thing.
No cuts, thank God.
A magnificent Duchess, with all the glory and fire of a late Titian, and a sweet besotted chemistry with Antonio. Antonio (Jason Bowen) was far better when I saw him as Ferdinand in The Tempest, but still perfectly competent at projecting a frightened and rather harassed virtue; I would wish him a bit more fire himself, perhaps. I... am not sure whether his being the only person of color in the cast was An Intentional Statement by the director. I devoutly hope not, but I couldn't tell.
Utterly brilliant Cardinal (Joel Colodner), who turned himself into the primary villain, and whose blocking was done by an evil genius. Unfortunately I do not think the Cardinal is meant as the primary villain, dammit. Ferdinand (Michael Forden Walker) did not, in my opinion, come off. Too mad right from the start. Too almost anti-charismatic; not believable as a prince. Ruth and I in conversation tonight concluded that the actor had done a reasonable portrait according to present ideas of psychological realism in such a situation, but the play was not written according to those ideas. It is meant to be plausible that Ferdinand has really turned into a wolf. All the talk of blood and demons is not a simple madness, but the madness of the Erinyes. This Ferdinand was a modern madman, though the actor did seem much happier and better able to cope once he could start biting people.
And oh, Bosola. I think Bill Barclay is now my image of Bosola. Funny, charming, despicable, lecherous by turns, sometimes putting on an image of melancholy, sometimes pretending to put on the image over real moral terror-- Bosola is the protagonist, the one who really changes, and I could not take my eyes off him. Perfect.
And they doublecast Julia and Cariola, which is a brilliant idea, and Marya Lowery was very very good as both. I always cry over Cariola. To be precise, when I read the play I begin crying at 'I am Duchess of Malfi still' and continue crying until Bosola leaves afterward.
Other things: the echo scene was a bit too echoey for my tastes, as if I hadn't known what was being said I couldn't have heard it. This might have been location or just me, though, as no one else seemed to have a problem. The madmen achieved genuinely creepy for a fair stretch, which was impressive given there were only two of them doing the whole chorus, and then lost me due to having silly French accents at the wrong time. The same two men did sterling work as the doctors. I did not approve of the blocking of the death of the Duchess, but I would have to draw you diagrams to explain why.
And as I said the Cardinal's blocking was done by an evil genius, and gave the play a genuinely terrifying moment of extra-textual sexual intrigue (how do you cram more sex into a Jacobean? they did). Actually I will describe this in more detail, because I will want to remember it in a few years.
You may want to skip this if you are going to see the production; I'm not saying anything else inside the cut tag.
In the first scene with the Cardinal and Julia, they were all over one another physically, really fairly explicitly, but in a teasing way, and then towards the end of that scene he sat down on the chair and hiked up his robe slightly (he was wearing fishnets, a nice touch) and she dropped to her knees and was leaning in when they were interrupted, and they both looked annoyed.
And then later on, when the Cardinal is pretending he doesn't know of the death of the Duchess or of Bosola's guilt, but it's perfectly obvious he knows both, and they're fencing about how Ferdinand is not going to pay Bosola and the Cardinal doesn't want to either and won't admit that-- the Cardinal says "If you'll do one thing for me, I'll entreat,/Though he had a cold tombstone o'er his bones,/I'd make you what you would be." Which is of course generally the runup to his telling Bosola to kill Antonio.
Except this time, the Cardinal said that line, and sat down in the chair, and hiked up his robe slightly, and smiled; and Bosola looked as though he were going to throw up. And he got out "Anything," and paused on the rest of the line, and his knees were about to hit the floor when Julia slammed in, at which point he staggered, caught his balance, went on with the rest of the speech.
Then when Julia catches Bosola alone and waves her gun at him, he is genuinely terrified, because you can see going through his head oh God she saw that, and he is so relieved to find out she is only dangerously sexually obsessed with him.
It was brilliant.
In conclusion: since I managed to go to Machiavelli's Mandragora in NYC last year, this was probably the one play in the world I most wanted to see live, and it made me very happy. I am hoping it means ASP will develop a taste for Jacobean, because nobody does those, and I will go to any one of them they do, especially since the new head of the list of plays I would love to see live and never expect to is probably 'Tis Pity She's A Whore.
Their others this season are Coriolanus, which I may well though it is not urgent, and Much Ado About Nothing, with which I have spent entirely too much time recently. ASP is rapidly becoming my favorite local theatre company.
(consult
sovay and nineweaving for other reviews, and hopefully gaudior will write one.)Short version: it is not my absolutely ideal version of The Duchess of Malfi, but then, no one is going to do that, and how often is this play performed anyhow? It is a very good Duchess of Malfi verging on very, very good, and it is running till February 1st (we saw the very first performance, in previews), and it was well worth trekking all over Fort Point in the dark and cold. If you are Boston-area and remotely interested, you should totally see it.
I would not say this was staged in the round, but I don't know if there is another word for it. The stage was a long narrow ribbon with doors at either end, audience on both sides as if built into the walls. A strip of lights down the middle of the stage flooring. One transparent chair. Chandeliers. Bones, unremarked, under the foot of the staging platform. This they did remarkably well with, I think; at any rate I think slightly more than half the play was at least partially facing us, but the scenes that weren't played equally well from the back, which must have taken a good deal of work in blocking.
Semi-anachronistic costuming-- the principal men especially achieving that timelessness of cut which could be period or a particular aesthetic of modern dress. The Duchess (Jennie Israel) knew how to manage a train and veil naturally and for emotional effect, a skill I admire greatly after my personal experiences with that sort of thing.
No cuts, thank God.
A magnificent Duchess, with all the glory and fire of a late Titian, and a sweet besotted chemistry with Antonio. Antonio (Jason Bowen) was far better when I saw him as Ferdinand in The Tempest, but still perfectly competent at projecting a frightened and rather harassed virtue; I would wish him a bit more fire himself, perhaps. I... am not sure whether his being the only person of color in the cast was An Intentional Statement by the director. I devoutly hope not, but I couldn't tell.
Utterly brilliant Cardinal (Joel Colodner), who turned himself into the primary villain, and whose blocking was done by an evil genius. Unfortunately I do not think the Cardinal is meant as the primary villain, dammit. Ferdinand (Michael Forden Walker) did not, in my opinion, come off. Too mad right from the start. Too almost anti-charismatic; not believable as a prince. Ruth and I in conversation tonight concluded that the actor had done a reasonable portrait according to present ideas of psychological realism in such a situation, but the play was not written according to those ideas. It is meant to be plausible that Ferdinand has really turned into a wolf. All the talk of blood and demons is not a simple madness, but the madness of the Erinyes. This Ferdinand was a modern madman, though the actor did seem much happier and better able to cope once he could start biting people.
And oh, Bosola. I think Bill Barclay is now my image of Bosola. Funny, charming, despicable, lecherous by turns, sometimes putting on an image of melancholy, sometimes pretending to put on the image over real moral terror-- Bosola is the protagonist, the one who really changes, and I could not take my eyes off him. Perfect.
And they doublecast Julia and Cariola, which is a brilliant idea, and Marya Lowery was very very good as both. I always cry over Cariola. To be precise, when I read the play I begin crying at 'I am Duchess of Malfi still' and continue crying until Bosola leaves afterward.
Other things: the echo scene was a bit too echoey for my tastes, as if I hadn't known what was being said I couldn't have heard it. This might have been location or just me, though, as no one else seemed to have a problem. The madmen achieved genuinely creepy for a fair stretch, which was impressive given there were only two of them doing the whole chorus, and then lost me due to having silly French accents at the wrong time. The same two men did sterling work as the doctors. I did not approve of the blocking of the death of the Duchess, but I would have to draw you diagrams to explain why.
And as I said the Cardinal's blocking was done by an evil genius, and gave the play a genuinely terrifying moment of extra-textual sexual intrigue (how do you cram more sex into a Jacobean? they did). Actually I will describe this in more detail, because I will want to remember it in a few years.
You may want to skip this if you are going to see the production; I'm not saying anything else inside the cut tag.
In the first scene with the Cardinal and Julia, they were all over one another physically, really fairly explicitly, but in a teasing way, and then towards the end of that scene he sat down on the chair and hiked up his robe slightly (he was wearing fishnets, a nice touch) and she dropped to her knees and was leaning in when they were interrupted, and they both looked annoyed.
And then later on, when the Cardinal is pretending he doesn't know of the death of the Duchess or of Bosola's guilt, but it's perfectly obvious he knows both, and they're fencing about how Ferdinand is not going to pay Bosola and the Cardinal doesn't want to either and won't admit that-- the Cardinal says "If you'll do one thing for me, I'll entreat,/Though he had a cold tombstone o'er his bones,/I'd make you what you would be." Which is of course generally the runup to his telling Bosola to kill Antonio.
Except this time, the Cardinal said that line, and sat down in the chair, and hiked up his robe slightly, and smiled; and Bosola looked as though he were going to throw up. And he got out "Anything," and paused on the rest of the line, and his knees were about to hit the floor when Julia slammed in, at which point he staggered, caught his balance, went on with the rest of the speech.
Then when Julia catches Bosola alone and waves her gun at him, he is genuinely terrified, because you can see going through his head oh God she saw that, and he is so relieved to find out she is only dangerously sexually obsessed with him.
It was brilliant.
In conclusion: since I managed to go to Machiavelli's Mandragora in NYC last year, this was probably the one play in the world I most wanted to see live, and it made me very happy. I am hoping it means ASP will develop a taste for Jacobean, because nobody does those, and I will go to any one of them they do, especially since the new head of the list of plays I would love to see live and never expect to is probably 'Tis Pity She's A Whore.
Their others this season are Coriolanus, which I may well though it is not urgent, and Much Ado About Nothing, with which I have spent entirely too much time recently. ASP is rapidly becoming my favorite local theatre company.
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Date: 2009-01-10 07:51 am (UTC)Compounding the problem, most of the other actors did pull off psychological realism with the same text; even Antonio (with similar reservations: I did not have a good sense of him when not in reaction to other characters, and he needs a self for the Duchess to have fallen in love with), and virtue is almost as impossible as children and animals. And I believe one can be incestuously obsessed with one sister's in a realistic fashion and not have it be the sole visible facet of one's character. I meant what I said: I couldn't see this Ferdinand ruling Calabria so much as flinging himself distractedly around the Cardinal's apartment and running up his internet connection for porn.
And oh, Bosola. I think Bill Barclay is now my image of Bosola. Funny, charming, despicable, lecherous by turns, sometimes putting on an image of melancholy, sometimes pretending to put on the image over real moral terror-- Bosola is the protagonist, the one who really changes, and I could not take my eyes off him. Perfect.
Yes. I will now buy tickets to see Bill Barclay read the phone book if anyone ever stages it.
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Date: 2009-01-10 01:37 pm (UTC)The only time I ever saw The Duchess of Malfi it was in a very conventional theatre and by the same repertory group who totally screwed up Doctor Faustus. They had a terrible fondness for doing everything in boiler suits.
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Date: 2009-01-11 07:52 am (UTC)I am in a flailing state that you've gotten to see the Duchess live--I've only recently read the text (in the unique situation of a class on Jacobean theatre at a Japanese college, taught in English, with a mixed class of native and non-native English speakers and lots of interesting interpretations) and the British TV production we saw left me somewhat unsatisfied. Your description of the blocking for the Cardinal sounds entirely brilliant and wicked--that's an amazingly evil addition of subtext to that whole situation that's so. Well. Astonishing, really, what actions lend to words, when the play has death and murder and sexual subtext already all over. I'm equally impressed the play is not cut up--as, as far as I understand, the madmen scene second plot is somewhat unfinished.
Alack, envy and envy again! *grin*
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Date: 2009-01-13 03:22 am (UTC)