SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Aug. 29, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — “The Duchess of Malfi,” the Jacobean revenge tragedy by John Webster, is one of those shows that can be absolutely mesmerizing or pretty hard going. Uncut, it is five acts, with a run time of up to three hours, and a cast of 15.
I recall first seeing the play, which was written in 1612 and first performed at the Globe around 1613, when I was in my initial term studying theater at university, at the Bristol Old Vic in England, and I’m absolutely mortified to say that it was so dull and dry that myself and some of my fellow students actually walked out. I think we lasted three acts, then in the second intermission just couldn’t take it any more and subsequently wrote papers on it without having seen the last two acts. Shocking, I know.
It seems from reading reviews that a good number of recent productions make heavy cuts to the text, but the staging often remains elaborate and ambitious; I read one review of a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 2018 that describes how at the beginning of the show, the Duchess drags onstage an outsize bull carcass, with its head, hooves and genitals cut off, which is then stabbed by an actor later in the proceedings, causing bucketfuls of blood to flood the stage. Audience members in the front row were provided with protective blankets to cover themselves during the latter half of the show.
The play is also not produced a lot here in Utah, so I was interested to see this production by ThreePenny Theatre Company. It opened Friday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 261 S. 900 East in Salt Lake City and has three more shows this week; Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with a Sunday matinee at 4:30 p.m. It’s worth noting that it is a pay-what-you-can show, and all high school and junior high students can attend for free. Tickets are available here.
The piece begins as a love story, when the Duchess marries a steward of the palace, Antonio. The Duchess is a feisty, independent, free-thinking spirit; a flame that burns so intensely that others feel the need to extinguish it. Her brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal, forbid her from remarrying, seeking to defend their inheritance and desperate to avoid an association with a social inferior. Suspicious of her, they hire Bosola to spy on her. She elopes with Antonio and bears him three children secretly. The piece then descends into a nightmarish tragedy as her two brothers undertake their revenge. The play is loosely based on the true story of Giovanna d’Aragona, Duchess of Amalfi, who died in 1511.
Jacobean drama continued the trend of stage violence and bloodshed set by Elizabethan tragedy, but every aspect of this production is pared down, lean and very successful. It runs a neat 90 minutes with no intermission and has a cast of just seven. The show is directed by Jonah Kirkhart, who has kept the meatiness of the piece but also imbues it with a certain simplicity and elegance; it’s as if passion and brutality are hovering hand-in-hand just under the surface, ready to burst forth at any moment. Kirkhart’s blocking is straightforward, and manages to succinctly communicate the rather complicated turn of events in the last couple of acts of the play, with their slightly confusing twists and turns that are reminiscent of Shakespeare’s obsession with false death and resurrection.
The performances across the board are excellent and I’m always excited to see an inclusive, gender blind cast of actors, none of whom I’ve seen on stage before. The Duchess is played by Isabella Giordano, a classically trained actress with a powerful stage presence who is riveting to watch. Her performance is unfussy, but has a dazzling intensity. The rest of the cast all turn in focused, understated performances, with a light sprinkle of comedy when it’s appropriate.
The production values are simple but pack a punch. There is no set designer credited, but as I mentioned, the show takes place in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which was built in 1917 in its current location and was made to resemble as closely as possible the early Tudor style of 16th century England. The parish hall of the Church, where the play takes place, provides a ready-made set, with dark beams, wooden panelling on the walls, and seating set up in front of the pews that line the hall. The lighting design is straightforward too; there are lights set up to the left and right of the audience and in the middle aisle also. During the matinee show, there was a lot of sunlight streaming in, so the lighting wasn’t particularly noticeable, though during the evening shows, the sun sets during the play, so that its macabre conclusion occurs after dark.
The costuming too, by Hannah Orr, is striking. The Duchess wears mostly red, the color, of course, that symbolizes passion, love, desire and also danger. The twin brother of the Duchess, Ferdinand, played by Sydney Vance, and their brother, the Cardinal, played by Kallie Filanda, are costumed in white and black, sporting dashes of crimson to align them with the Duchess. The other characters are dressed in a more muted palette of beiges, blues and browns. There is a nod to the time period with some of the cast wearing corsets, but with otherwise contemporary outfits. The actors also wear dramatic makeup, emphasizing their eyes, which is effective as much of the acting in the show is achieved simply with facial expressions.
All in all, the production has a crispness and clarity I haven’t seen achieved with this play before. This company has found a good niche, producing strong scripts that are not often done here in Utah and modern takes on plays that are notoriously tricky to produce. Part of their mission statement also is to engage impoverished, lower income, and homeless communities in classes and rehearsal in the theatrical arts.
Coming up next in ThreePenny’s season is “Night, Mother” by Marsha Norman in October, a play about a mother and daughter, which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. I look forward to this production and am excited to see what the company tackles in the future.
