Review: ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore
John Ford’s Jacobean tale of incest and revenge is dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century in this highly stylised and deliciously sinister production.
The forbidden love between Giovanni and his sister Annabella is portrayed as a tender but doomed affair – similar in many ways to another famous pair of star-crossed Italian lovers. It was hugely controversial at the time and has lost little of its impact now.
Lydia Wilson, as the object of desire, strikes a perfect balance between youthful innocence and sexual awakening, with a display reminiscent of her take on Cate in Sarah Kane’s Blasted. Laurence Spellman, though, provides the stand-out performance as the ambiguous, sadistic Vasquez, delivering his lines with a hilarious Cockney flourish.
‘Tis Pity’s plot is, as you’d expect of a Jacobean tragedy, convoluted: condensing it to two hours inevitably means some parts – notably Giovanni and Annabella’s proposed husband Soranzo – feel a little under-developed. Director Declan Donnellan takes some brave liberties with the material; character’s insecurities manifest themselves on the compact stage and overlapping scenes swirl into one another, giving the whole sordid affair a nightmarish quality. It’s dark, gruesome and very gory – and all the better for it.
First published in City A.M.