The Four Stages of Cruelty

Synopsis

1751. London is over-crowded. The morals are as loose as the women and the crime as free as the gin. On the streets, prostitutes, footpads and highwaymen coalesce with Dukes, members of Parliament and anyone in between. Somewhere near the bottom of this heap is an orphan named Tom Nero. Trapped in a brutal and compelling struggle to survive, he grapples, hustles and kills to rise above the fate society has dealt him.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 31 May 2011

It’s a simple premise with highly imaginative treatment: Adam Brace (author of Stovepipe) and Sebastian Armesto take William Hogarth’s four 1751 prints, The Four Stages of Cruelty, depicting the unsavoury descent of their protagonist, Tom Nero, from crime and murder to the anatomist’s dissecting table.

Covering cruelty to animals (though we see nothing worse than a skinned rabbit) and the murder of a maidservant drawn into theft, Brace and Armesto’s text – they double as directors, too, of this simple8 presentation -- is both a literal reading of the explicit engravings and an elaboration.

It’s fun and flavoursome but strangely pointless. Perhaps it needed more music, following the example of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, or more narrative ballast, following that of Nick Dear in his lively 1987 Hogarth play, The Art of Success.

Still, the stage (in the smaller o...

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