Abstract
Jacobean plays tend to reflect the political, social, and intellectual ferment of the reign of James I even when taking place elsewhere such as the Italian setting of The Revenger’s Tragedy. Cheek by Jowl’s adaptation does not break with the geographical setting and the grotesque picture of the age. Their characters, mostly vile, treacherous, and promiscuous, hail from a kind of Berlusconi era of the spoilt contemporary elite, basking in the glory of the Italian Renaissance in their palazzos (a massive back-wall projection of Titian’s Man with a Quilted Sleeve was very memorable), while plotting murder and fornicating. As in the 1606 play, the production’s duplicitous, conflicted, and violent protagonists are engaged in overindulgence and decadence as reflected in their stage names: Ambitioso, Lussurioso, Supervacuo, Vindice, Spurio. Indeed, adapters Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod focus on the violence, depravity, and excess in this modern-dress staging.
The main character Vindice (Fausto Cabra), carrying his lover’s skull whenever he can manage it, is of course a mocking version of Hamlet bent on revenge for his beloved’s death, and his speech kicks off the performance. In Cheek by Jowl’s version, his quest to kill the Duke triggers a chain of events which will lead to comprehensive annihilation, including that of his own family. Vindice, a doggedly vengeful lover, hides in plain sight (indeed he is a shadowy figure directing the whole play and the ensemble) and offers tedious tirades, while the Duke’s three adoptive sons take centre stage to entertain the audience. Ambitioso, Supervacuo, and Junior play with great comical timing and remarkable dexterity, although their actions not only amuse but at times give the audience a dose of fright. While the trio amounts to little more than inept, dangerous buffoons, the Duke’s heir, Lussurioso (Ivan Alovisio) is portrayed differently. He is a shrewd and cautious politician who hungers for power and gets it, though he eventually becomes a (deserved) victim of his own excesses.
The culmination of the production arrives in the scene of the brutal, Grand Guignol-esque, murder of the Duke who is tortured, his eyes removed, filmed in real time and projected on the back wall for everyone to see every little detail of the bloody, gory (even if faked) onstage deeds. The actors of Piccolo Teatro di Milano manage to be funny and sinister at the same time and with ease. They move constantly, even frenetically, and the leitmotif of the overall stage movement is a fairly comically delivered danse macabre.
Women do not feature prominently in Middleton’s play or this production but tragic elements centre on them: the sons trick and bash around their mothers, the brothers pimp their innocent sisters while pursuing a personal vendetta. Only the Duchess (Pia Lanciotti, who also plays Vindice’s mother, Gratiana) seems to be in control: she is seductive but she uses sex as a means to an end and on her own terms. Her tragedy is that she cannot protect her three vile sons and despite her attempts to save them, they all die.
The production draws aesthetically on a rich range of Italian arts. Indeed, the filmic quality of the production is quite striking, by chiming visually with the Renaissance and baroque iconography in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s cinema, indulging in strong sexual content and the aesthetic of excess of Federico Fellini, displaying the 1960s and 1970s horrors of giallo developed by Antonio Margheriti and Sergio Corbucci, and finally infusing the overall style with the Commedia all’italiana of Mario Monicelli.
I wonder what other Italian influences the production contains and if the Italian spectators, who can enjoy the play in a new Italian version (titled faithfully as La tragedia del vendicatore by Stefano Massini), are privy to any innuendos that would have been lost on most of the Barbican audience (who need to follow English surtitles). The Duke played with furore by the diminutive actor (Massimiliano Speziani) closely resembles disgraced Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi (as he was born in Milan, I expect this could be the biggest jape of the show for the local audience).
Without a doubt, this is a successful adaptation of a Jacobean play gruesomely unpalatable for modern audiences, hence the need to balance the plot with a strong comedic take. But it has been done like this before and what surprised me is the slight lack of originality in Cheek by Jowl’s interpretation. Perhaps it is the curse of a well-developed aesthetic that screams, ‘Cheek by Jowl’, but I felt that they were unable to engage as deeply with this Jacobean text as they were able to in their 2013 Measure for Measure with the Pushkin Theatre. Their Revenger’s Tragedy oozes joyous pessimism that can produce only hollow laughter. Maybe, after all, in a time of pandemic (I saw the production as the COVID-19 crisis was already sweeping Italy), joyous pessimism is just what the doctor ordered. It is therefore sad news that all future shows have been cancelled indefinitely.