The Revenger's Tragedy at the National Theatre
Meredith Farmer/CreativeCommons
I wasn't wowed by Melly Still's production, but I did enjoy it. It begins with a bang: drums crash us into a wordless prologue in which Antonio's wife is raped in the dark underground of what seems and sounds like a club. This is how we're immediately introduced to one of the stars of the production: the set. It's a thing of three parts - the club lounge, a more neutral chamber and the house of Vindice, the protagonist revenger himself, played here by Rory Kinnear. The set is impressive both visually and practically (it contains corridors enabling characters to scurry within it as in a warren) and I liked it - I did wonder though whether a bit too much emphasis was put on the look of the production rather than its feel.
The famous, four-hundred-year-old Revenger's Tragedy is a relentless gore-fest, with Vindice, whose betrothed has been murdered for refusing the advances of the tyrannical Duke, contriving to slay the Duke and his sons by a mix of luck and skill. It ends up with a body count more familiar in a video game than in a play. There's long been a debate about whether Tourneur wrote it, or Middleton, and the National plumps fashionably for Middleton, but I doubt this'll ever be settled. The publicity sells it as "ferociously dark" - and it might have been played that way. But it wasn't, really. Although Rory Kinnear is undoubtedly a good thing - his hilarious turn as Sir Fopling Flutter in The Man of Mode last year stole the show, though I thought Tom Hardy and especially Nancy Carroll were its real stars - I wondered whether casting him and using his comic ability to bring out the potential humour in The Revenger's Tragedy was really the best way to go. Ferocious darkness, this wasn't. I agree with Susannah Clapp that the production shows a certain lack of confidence in the play.
Take the killing of the Duke, by means of the poisoned skull of Vindice's dead love, dressed up as a doll to fool the Duke who thinks a woman is being sent to his room. The idea seems ludicrous - how could anyone be fooled by that? And the scene is initially played for laughs, very effectively. But I really think it's possible to play it full-bloodedly, giving ironic distance no quarter - and surely that kind of commitment is needed if "ferocious darkness" is to be achieved. Technology - lighting, projection perhaps - could help make the contrivance here something other than silly. If you're going to choose the highlight the play's comedy, though, it could hardly be done better. Vindice's character changes are made the most of, wigs, hats and all, and I especially enjoyed his reapparance in the guise of himself, impoverished
I've e'en forgot what colour silver's of.
and hired to kill his own false identity.
There's quite a bit else to like. Elliot Cowan's Lussurio lives up to his name as an amoral lounge-lizard, and Katherine Manners and the excellent Barbara Flynn do good work in the arguments between mother and daughter over money and morals. It's easy to overestimate the quality of famous actors but you really do feel in surer than average hands when Flynn is on stage.
The Revenger's Tragedy is an interesting rather than a great play. It's a moral tale for those who would rule, I think: seek or use power corruptly, and your sins will in the end destroy you. And it's as much a warning for rebels as for rulers, because, as Antonio shows at the play's end, assassins threaten all power and may themselves suffer revenge. Strong and honest government is needed to avoid cycles of vengeance and feuding, as is still being learned in Belfast and Baghdad.
Michael Billington didn't like the "preliminary tosh": I think he has a point that it obscured to some extent the content of Vindice's opening speech. Charles Spencer in the Telegraph loved the production. Russell Bowes was a bit harsh on Katherine Manners I think (I quite fancied her) but I agree with him about Melly Still's epilogue which balanced the prologue and I thought served the sense of a restorative ending rather than undermining it. Alistair Smith's feeling in The Stage were much like mine - he too thought the comedy chased away the darkness.
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