Jodie Whittaker as the Duchess. Photo: Marc Brenner.

The Duchess (of Malfi) by John Webster, adapted by Zinnie Harris – Trafalgar Theatre, London

Zinnie Harris has modernised John Webster’s classic revenge tragedy with a bold production that gives a new perspective on a wild, brutal story, while also stripping it of the language that has given its place in the repertoire, 400 years later. There are many good things about the production. Tom Piper’s modernist set is stripped back to concrete, with metal walkways, a suitable backdrop for slaughter. Jodie Whittaker is an appealingly defiant Duchess, a woman who will not give way to what men demand of her, however huge the price. In fact, she continues to haunt her brothers, Paul Ready’s Cardinal and Rory Fleck Byrne’s Ferdinand, after death. Ready stands out as the lascivious Cardinal, plausible but depraved, unable to resist humiliating his mistress Julia (Elizabeth Ayodele), as soon as she shows weakness. Fleck Byrne’s Ferdinand is convincingly unhinged, his sexuality tearing him apart. He appears, dramatically, wearing his sister’s red dress after ordering her murder. Fleck Byrne is generally watchable, but loses marks for tossing away the character’s most famous speech, “Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young”, which an actor is surely contractually obliged to have fun with.

There is also a powerful performance from Jude Owusu as the murderer Bosola. Owusu’s ambiguity is subtlety delivered, keeping us guessing throughout as to who he really is. Harris’ version emphasises his role, letting him live at the denouement, unlike almost all the other characters, to regret his past and promise to look after the Duchess’ young son. She also highlights his class position as someone who cannot afford to turn down work, however grisly. In this, he is allied with the maid Cariola, who Matti Houghton plays with a great deal of character. In one of Harris’s best lines, she reveals that women wear make-up to hide their rage at the misogyny around them.

The production is an interesting and enjoyable evening, a valuable and committed experiment with a play that is usually hidden in the shadows. Harris brings it out into the light, shining an unforgiving fluorescent light on its themes like an autopsy. She makes the brutal treatment of women uncomfortably apparent, and the deep corruption that fuels the power of the few the unmissable cause of society’s ills. Unsurprisingly, it’s a play for our times. The use of music in the play, with Whittaker and Houghton delivering Webster’s songs with aplomb to the accompaniment of white-suited guitarist, contrasts nicely with the grim imagery – the bodies of the Duchess, Cariola and her young daughter left sprawled on the stage throughout the following scene. Whittaker death scene is delivered in astonishingly gruesome fashion, strangled unsuccessfully at length with a rope by incompetent goons before Bosola finishes the job himself, drowning her in a bath. However, it’s a shame about the poetry which, when it surfaces from time to time brings the show suddenly to life. For the most part it is missing, and an essential element in the play’s appeal disappears with it.