Overheard returning to the theatre after Intermission:
Old Gentleman: there’s trouble brewing…
Old Lady: yep, they’re all gonna die!
Our instincts know how these things go, right? Mix revenge, aristocracy, religion, a hefty dose of Italian swaggoo and what do you get? Sex, lustful insanity, and dead people. Lots of dead people.(1)
If you’ve ever seen Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet you can instantly identify with the vibe of (I am Still) The Duchess of Malfi. There’s a certain “thing” about adapting really old plays into modern times… a certain smarmy something. Greasy, perverted, slightly off-key. You know what I mean? *wink wink* *nudge nudge*. It’s probably due to the fact that humanity should have learned something in the intervening 400+ years. Which of course it hasn’t. That’s okay, because we can still laugh at ourselves. You got the text, right?
And that’s where the Duchess of Malfi arrives, dragging her tired Prada shopping bags, and widowed and undersexed gams into the confessional cum dungeon, with one incestuous and one hyper-greedy-unfeeling zealot Cardinal, her brothers, dogging her. Of course her future lover-husband is a studly “mongrel” and her best friend a bougie hobaguette from the wrong side of the tracks with an intellectual streak. Last but not least, and lest we forget, our gay tour guide narrator, and the cyanide pill as revenge-filled assassin man, as the ultimate instruments of “they’re all gonna die” to round out the Duchesses’ entourage.
Because in the end it is all about The Duchess.
The staging is slick but spare resembling something between a bordello, a mob restaurant, and a castle dungeon. Which is par for the course as the narrator leaves us no doubt to the character of Malfi when he says that there is nothing “holy in the word religion”. But there is plenty of unholy in its residents.
Our tour guide narrates us through the machinations of Malfi during the first act, which felt more like a preface, a setup for the juicy bits which come round in the second. Liberal one liners set up Malfi as an echo-chamber of modern issues of corporate greed, fascist control, protest/revolt, familial obligations, and hypocritical Christianity. Praise be to God. Amen! Unfortunately some of the jokes seem forced (2), invoking snickers instead of guffaws. But then these issues can be uncomfortable in their familiarity. I wanted them to take the acting a lot further – I wanted them to make me feel a little bit dirty and sleazy and smarmy about these characters. I wanted to feel some emotional investment in them. Instead I felt a bit flat after the first act.
The second act opens with our heroine tied to a gurney in an antiseptic room with Mr. revenge-filled assassin man (Bosola), the lighting is shocking. She’s been kidnapped to a torture chamber and the streets are revolting. It’s “Duchess Spring” in Malfi. The extended battle of wits between the Duchess and Bosola is the first truly gripping scene in the play. The second a little later in the torture scene with her lover/husband Antonio. BANG BANG. They’re all dead. That’s it? Despite the 2nd act finally settling in a stronger brew, I found myself emotionally wanting more from the characters right up to the all good gays go to heaven end.
I’ll give the play a C+/B- in the ultimately enjoyable, but wanting more category. The heroine should have been more heroic, Antonio more naive, Bosola more angry, the Cardinal more sleazy, Ferdinand more crazy… I don’t know if its the weird unengaged combo of comedy and tragedy that doesn’t quite gel in the writing, or the acting of this particular combo. I do give props to the actors for keeping us engaged and never bored for the entire 2 hours despite the fact that I never cared a lick for any of the characters.
(1) My ears are still ringing from the gunshots.
(2) I think I was only one in the theatre that got the Shepard Fairey joke.
(I Am Still) The Duchess of Malfi
January 10, 2012 – February 12, 2012
Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison, Portland, OR.
By Joseph Fisher, an adaptation of John Webster’s play
Directed By Jon Kretzu
This play runs with one intermission.
