Malfi, we have a problem.

The relationship at the heart of Zinnie Harris’s self-directed adaptation of The Duchess of Malfi lacks sexual chemistry.

Which is not to discredit the performances of Kirsty Stuart and Graham Mackay-Bruce. For the former is as playful as a kitten after widowhood releases her from her “all force, no fancy” marriage. And the latter is as bookish and obedient as his lowly status as her bespectacled accountant demands. Not to mention suitably surprised and suspicious that his alluring boss shares his carnal desires.

There is passion; but it is staged, not felt. A criticism which could be levelled at much of Act 1, which is as long and slow, if not as pulsating, as the elderly Cardinal’s (George Costigan’s) anal drilling of his young married congregant Julia (Leah Walker).

Apart from the opening, that is, during which the red-haired Duchess befrocked in scarlet makes her striking entrance from between two sliding doors before slinking downstage towards a spotlit mic like a nervous solo artist after splitting up from an all-girl band.

Her faltering lyrics growing in confidence before she is silenced by men. Namely, her brothers Ferdinand (Angus Miller) and the aforementioned purveyor of choral blessings. The gist of their increasingly terse admonishments being: cover yourself up, shut your mouth and obey.

There will be blood, but it takes an age to spill when in a thrilling second act the central themes of misogyny, hypocrisy and the abuse of power come to a head in a graphic torture scene which rips the action out of Jacobean corsetry and places it firmly in the here and now where women are routinely stoned and beheaded for the crime of being raped.

Men, on the other hand, get off scot-free. Though in Harris’s adaptation they suffer the same comeuppance as the dead butcher and his fiend-like queen in that their soiled consciences prove their undoing. None more so than Miller’s unhinged Ferdinand who is reduced to a quivering wreck, speaking in riddles to drown out his guilt.

Only Adam Tompa’s sensitive Delio survives with his dignity intact. Though a loveless marriage is the cross he bears for denying his hinted at homosexuality.

Set against Tom Piper’s austere concrete wall through which chinks of light symbolise the Duchess’s newfound freedom – windows to the world, which like escape routes are blocked when Adam Best’s terrifying and terrific turn as the twisted henchman Bosola sharpens his blade – the expansive space together with static direction, invariable lighting and muted soundscape reduces the potential peaks and troughs of the first act from poetry to prose.

Thankfully, the second act is much more visceral. Though the shocking misogyny is beautifully and movingly counteracted by the patient cleansing of open wounds by three generations of breaking but unbroken women led by the guitar-strumming voice of an angel Eleanor Kane.

“Change it,” proclaims the defiant Duchess before a projection of the selfsame words. An appeal to men, women and children to challenge patriarchal power which as Jo Clifford wrote in Inés de Castro almost thirty years to the day is “the way things are and the way things have to be”.

Peter Callaghan
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1 Comment

  1. I saw this play last night and I found it gripping. Slow is not a word I would use as the first half is required to set up the second half which is as brutal as it is shocking. The writing is sharp, as one would expect from Harris, and the direction crisp and clinical. I would have liked a bit more passion between Antonio and the Duchess, but Graham Mackay-Bruce struggled to deliver that.
    Overall this is a wonderful piece – it’s relevant and terrifying. It might not be for everyone, but it’s the best thing I’ve seen at the lyceum this season and a reminder that Scotland is able to produce challenging theatre.

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