Once, twice, she stumbles - letting the rope in her hands go slack, a pitiful whimper to escape her lips. Yet, mustering her strength, she keeps going, dragging the heavy carcass onto the stage...
Recently, I've seen some really enlightening productions of Renaissance drama, where the story and characters have been transposed to a modern setting. Such modernisation can be a risk, but it is also essential to keep the intrigue and influence of theatre alive. The work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries is often as powerful, problematic and provocative to a modern audience as it was at the time it was written, but sometimes with traditional costumes and sets, the themes lessen or lose their impact. In stylising John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in a 21st century world, the Royal Shakespeare Company reminds audiences of theatre's ability to impact and unsettle. Here's my thoughts.
It is clear from the beginning of this production which aspect of Webster's play director Maria Aberg wanted to convey most centrally. Set in a shabby gymnasium, with a faded rubber floor, rows of broken bleachers and metal scaffolding, the atmosphere is oppressively masculine. In an energetic dance sequence, the all-male officers of the court sprint, stretch, and spar in a display of athletic prowess; when the Duchess (Joan Iyiola) arrives above them, even their salute is an aggressive stamp to attention. The Duchess descends into the gym like Daniel into the lion's den - her men, breathing heavily from their exertions, gather around her almost protectively. Yet, when the Duchess's brother, Duke Ferdinand (Alexander Cobb), enters, clasping his sister tightly and commanding the appointment of Bosola, the men's demeanour changes: they appear now to bear down on her, their eyes filled with lust. It is a notion this production returns to throughout - the very real issue of sexual harassment and toxic masculinity.
Cobb and Chris New give disturbing and sometimes distressing performances in the roles of the Duchess's brothers, the Duke and the Cardinal; Nicholas Tennant portrays Bosola as a brutish thug willing to deceive and destroy anything in return for wealth and status. The Duke's choler, the Cardinal's depravity - at the root of all the play's tragedy is a patriarchy where not only fathers and husbands, but brothers and servants, have a belief in their superiority over women. The Duchess holds title and status, but her brothers possess something which holds infinitely more sway: their masculinity entitles them, so it seems, to dictate their sister's life, from who she appoints in her court to whose children she bears. It is unclear of whether their objection to her husband Antonio (Paul Woodson) arises from their insecurity of their lineage and claim to the duchy, their disdain in his relatively low status, or simply because of their wish to control their sister in order to affirm their own masculinity.
Yet what sets this production apart from other renditions of the play is its bold staging choices. Ever-present in the corner of the stage hangs a monstrous carcass, headless and unidentifiable, its bloated stomach bared towards the action on stage. During the first half of the play, it is overlooked - the toxic, masculine, elephant-in-the-room. In the second half, when the brothers' plot to destroy the Duchess gains momentum, Ferdinand (goaded by the male courtiers) slashes the carcass open. Blood gushes from the wound, but it is as easy to imagine gall, or pus, draining from the beast's bloated belly, spreading its toxicity to all the men gathered there. Ferdinand is the first to be painted red: at first just his hands and shoes, then his clothes, later, his face, hair, and whole person will be doused in blood, damning him for his actions.
Throughout the latter half of the production, the blood continues to spill from the beast, spreading across the stage. To the audience, it is shockingly clear, but to the characters it appears to be invisible: they walk through it, kneel down in it, and transfer it from surface to surface without cringing or losing composure. A harrowing metaphor for how, to anyone outside a situation, sexual harassment or toxic masculinity is glaringly apparent, yet to those lost within the situation, it can be difficult to recognise and prescribe a remedy until it has spread too far, or sunk too deep.
After the Duchess has been brutally murdered and Ferdinand driven mad with guilt, both Iyiola and Cobb are covered in blood. A tender moment is shared as Ferdinand cradles his sister's body in his arms - one stained by his corruptive patriarchy; an innocent other drowned by it. Somewhat surprisingly, I found myself making connections between this scene and the final scene of King Lear, where Lear holds Cordelia's body in his arms. In both cases, oppressive masculinity has seen a man seek to control a female relative - by demanding her whole love, and when she disobeys and seeks autonomy, exacting a harsh penalty (banishment, imprisonment). Both Lear and Ferdinand later regret the measures they go to when Cordelia and the Duchess are dead (both by strangulation). In a quiet moment where the male holds the female's body in his arms, the male displays primitive behaviour (Lear's 'Howl, howl, howl', Ferdinand's lycanthropy), and hallucinations in their grief (both Lear and Ferdinand believe the dead female to be whispering to them). In both cases, the male dies shortly afterwards, the last of an entire family to be destroyed by man's desire to control woman.
Yet, in the RSC's production of The Duchess of Malfi, the Duchess is given an underlying strength which cements her role as the main character of this play. She has a poise, a grace, and a resilience that neither of her brothers (indeed, none of the male characters, even Antonio) possess. She retains her dignity, even in death; though she is being constricted like the trussed-up beast in the corner of the stage, this production sees her spirit break free of her noose, leaving the executioners in a meaningless tug-of-war as she climbs upon her bed, and dies on her own terms - free of man's power struggle. Her body lies like a memento-mori, beckoning her brothers and their accomplices to their own deaths. During the final struggle between Ferdinand, the Cardinal, and Bosola, the Duchess rises and walks again, calmly watching their demise.
Ferdinand may bunch up her bedsheets in a rage, but it was her wedding bed first. The brothers may flood the gym with their toxicity, but it was her court first. We can't forget that it was her, the Duchess, whose display of power and humanity when pulling the beast onto the stage made pale all the masculine flaunting which followed. She was, and is, the Duchess of Malfi still.
The Duchess of Malfi runs at the RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, until 3 August 2018.
Photo credits:
All photos by Helen Maybanks, copyright of the RSC, found here.
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