Synopsis A story of the corruption of innocence. Thee young people are seduced by the lies, lust and treachery of the sophisticated players who thrive in the glamorous court of the Duke of Florence. Written in 1623
Dates: Opens 23 February 2006. Feb 16,17,18,20,21,22,24,25,27,28, Mar 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,13,14,15,16,17,18,20,21,22,23,24,25,27,28,29,30,31, Apr 1 at 19:30. Feb 23 19:00. Feb 18,25, Mar 2,4,8,11,15,18,22,25,29, Apr 1 Mats 13:30
In The Changeling and Women Beware Women, Thomas Middleton nailed down sexual vagaries in a way Shakespeare never approached in any of his works. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Romeo and Juliet this most definitely is not.
The play opens with a pair of lovers, newly eloped to the groom’s mother’s house. However, their love will be brutally cut short. The bride, Bianca, catches the eye of the Duke of Florence and, lured to his palace on pretext, is raped by the duke. So far, so conventional. But the rape is just the starting point for Middleton’s exploration of the dark side of sex, ambition and power.
Rather than kill herself, or seek revenge, Bianca adjusts to the realpolitik and transfers her loyalty to the Duke. Leantio, her heartbroken lover, also quickly adjusts to the new realities and after accepting service in the Duke’s court, soon consents to be a noblewoman’s toy boy.
While necrophilia and cannibalism, which pop up in some of Middleton’s other work, don’t get a look in here, we do get incest and a healthy body count during the final scene, a blackly comic court masque celebrating the marriage of the Duke and Bianca, in which all scores are settled.
And this black comedy is the other aspect which makes Women and Middleton so recognisably modern. It as if he is undermining the very genre he is writing in, destabilising the revenge play by making the denouement ridiculously over the top and completely improbable. When the bodies pile up before him, the Duke pores over his notes and complains that this isn’t in his text.
Director Laurence Boswell, who gave us a terrific Dog in the Manger during last year’s Spanish Golden Age season, handles the comedy deftly, as one would expect, but doesn’t find the darkness needed. The programme notes write of one production which featured a set festooned with rotting corpses suspended from meat hooks. You couldn’t imagine that in this production.
I have to confess, rather ashamedly, that I had never seen, or even read, any of Middleton's plays before (though I would add that, judging by the delighted astonishment of those around me, I was far from alone in my ignorance) and hence had very little idea of what to expect from Laurence Boswell's production of Women Beware Women.
Though the play is classed as a Jacobean tragedy (and indeed in the final scene there is a plethora of sudden deaths, some perpetrated by rather unlikely means) it had, in this production, more of the feel of a tragic-comedy, and contains much humour relating to the status of women which still speaks loudly to us today – as indeed do the serious ideas which underlie that humour.
Another fact which prevents the play from having the status of a true tragedy is that none of the characters can be classed as a tragic hero (or heroine). Whilst at times we feel for many of the people caught in the toils of its plots and counterplots, the only one who retains our sympathy (as perhaps the author intended, since he is murdered before the ever-growing number of corpses that strew the stage in the last scene tests the bounds of our credulity) is not the stuff of which heroes are made.
Having said as much, though, I would add at once that this did not prevent the production from being a hugely entertaining one. Designed by Richard Hudson, with a "set" that essentially consists of an ingeniously revolving wall with a doorway to one side (which is turned round to indicate changes of location, the characters often entering and exiting round it as it moves) and rich Jacobean costumes, it also has a score, by Tim Sutton, which in tone suitably matches the rather operatic nature of the story. And the excesses of the final scene are not merely reflected but actually gloried in by its superb staging.
It also has a fine cast who were clearly enjoying themselves every bit as much as we were and are led by the superb Penelope Wilton as the scheming Livia, whose direct way of communicating with us helps to bring out the modernity of some of the play's ideas. I would also single out Bruce Mackinnon's wonderfully over the top portrayal of a foolish Ward, and Elliot Cowan's very sympathetic Leantio, who is a lowly clerk drawn into the bewildering intrigues of court life by his marriage to a fine gentlewoman and who ultimately pays with his life, but the whole ensemble contributed to the overall level of entertainment.
I would strongly recommend this production to anyone – particularly those to whom the plays of Middleton are unfamiliar, who may, like me, have their eyes opened to the richness of his works and come away from the performance with a wish to see more of them.
- 194.75.129.200)
20 Mar 06
Marred by the peculiar costumes and Elliot Cowan's appalling diction, but otherwise an enjoyable account of the play. - 81.79.124.108)
01 Mar 06
I rather enjoyed this production. The set was perhaps minimal but seeing that the action is in the end so OTT, more hyperbole was perhaps unnecessary. It was so funny really, so absurd. The programme talks of the discontinuous morality of the characters & I think that's the point - very unlike Shakespeare - as if they rather can't help but lose direction, & merge moral, amoral, and immoral only as they see fit at the time.
I agree with previous reviewer that Leantio rushes and mumbles his lines. Otherwise first rate. Costumes did not irritate me, & Penelope Wilton descending from the ceiling shaped like a Dalek quite entrancing. - 193.113.57.161)
27 Feb 06
Good to see this relatively rare play, but Laurence Boswell's production is something of a mixed bag. The costume design is most strange - a mixture of period and modern which I'm guessing was an attempt to show relevance to today - and as with most such attempts it isn't needed and in fact detracts from the production. My second gripe is that Elliot Cowan's Leantio (on whom the costume issue is most apparent) gabbles his lines at such a pace as to be completely uninteligible throughout. Since he is involved in the first scene, this doesn't help set the tone. Thankfully, this proves the exception and the rest of the cast are either good or excellent. Penelope Wilton's Livia is deliciously scheming, and she is given excellent support by Tim Pigott-Smith, Rob Edwards, Peter Guinness, Emma Cunniffe and Hayley Atwell in particular. It's a shame that Ms Cunniffe is so under-used in the part and hopefully she'll return to a more "meaty" role here soon. If Mr Cowan can slow down his delivery (pace is not the same thing as speed) then this would merit a 4 star review. - 62.255.32.15)
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