Women Beware Women. To 1 April.
Stratford-upon-Avon
WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN - Thomas Middleton
RSC - The Swan To 1 April
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & 2, 8, 15, 22, 29 March 1.30pm
Audio-described 25 March 1.30pm, 29 March 7.30pm
Captioned 22 March 7.30pm
Runs: 3h 10m One interval
TICKETS: 0870 609 1110
www.rsc.org.uk
Review: Rod Dungate 23 February 2006
A dish to taste
Viewing this play today we might well think it could as fairly be called Men Beware Men; the male characters are hardly less blameworthy than their female counterparts. So while it may seem that Middleton may be unfairly pointing a finger at the women’s apparent vices we must take note of another level of his writing – the women are so much more interesting (and fun.) Drama presents us with flesh and blood, and because it’s in a safe situation, we can really admire the baddies – and the badder the better.
Nowhere could this be clearer than in Middleton’s central character – the widow Livia. Widow’s are great characters to have in plays at this time because they’re allowed to have (to have had) s – e – x. They know a thing or two about life. Penelope Wilton is marvellous; she exudes delight as she plots and schemes – helping her brother and niece into a fulfilled, though incestuous, relationship, tricking a neighbour’s daughter-in-law into the arms of the Duke, then making a stud/ toy-boy of that young woman’s husband. In Wilton’s performance the language is always clear and sounds unbelievably natural, she releases comedy from the text as crackling squibs; she maintains a vibrancy of sexual tension throughout.
Tim Piggott-Smith’s Duke is a real bloke – caring little for religious homily (his brother is a cardinal). Having dispatched his lover’s husband he sets about making an honest woman of her. Hayley Atwell is a sparky Bianca and the moment she and the Duke dispute with the Cardinal the rightness of their forthcoming marriage is a delight. We delight in them getting one over on the Duke – and our heart wantonly rules our head.
Middleton presents a world awash with irregular sexual behaviour – and offers no substantial or believable criticism. ‘Ah,’ I hear the cry, ‘they all die at the end.’ So what? What’s the manner of their dying? Middleton puts all their deaths into a ludicrous masque – there’s no dignity, no sense of punishment. It’s pantomime guignol. A far cry from the one earlier murder – Bianca’s estranged husband; in Elliot Cowan’s understated performance this murder counts; again our heart rules supreme – ‘He’s done nothing wrong!’
This is a complex, many layered, often contrary play. Director, Laurence Boswell, gets much of it right – the dark humour, the physical and electric passion, the dark sense of pleasurable corruption. He pushes the pace too hard in the opening scenes, and clarity is sometimes sacrificed. (An exception is Susan Engel’s perfectly pitched Widow.) The final masque should push boundaries further, be more daring and needs a closer eye to detail and the rhythm of ‘ending’.
Having said this, Women Beware Women is a dish certainly to be tasted.
Cast details and other credits to follow.
2006-02-24 11:35:09