the duchess of malfi a play john webster

In Delio’s concluding speech, Webster’s irony is at its peak when he encourages his audience to ‘make noble use / Of this great ruin’ and seems to present the play as a vehicle for moral instruction, defining in a final twist an ethics based on an ‘integrity of life’. Bloody sensationalism should therefore not eclipse what some critics saw as a drama of knowledge. Against Bosola, the figure of the malcontent who also embodies the typical early modern overreacher, the Duchess stands as a symbol of female transgression before she is eventually crushed by evil and male power. Webster’s drama has been labelled as baroque, grotesque, mannerist, gothic or feminist. School resources relating to The Duchess are also available from the resources section of our website.Secrets, lies, dismembering, incest, madness, apparitions, mental torture, lycanthropia, brutal murders: there is little that The Duchess of Malfi (1614) shies away from, inflicting on its spectators a whirlwind of conflicting passions and emotions. 'Dark, clever, funny and beautiful' - Audience reactions For details on how to get to Tramway click here.īlood-filled vengeance, murder and madness The Duchess will be presented at Tramway whilst the Citizens Theatre building undergoes an exciting redevelopment. Zinnie has garnered huge critical success for her previous adaptations of The Oresteia: This Restless House, (Citizens Theatre and National Theatre of Scotland) and her more recent versions of Ibsen’s The Master Builder (West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Ionesco’s Rhinoceros (Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Edinburgh International Festival and DOT Theatre, Istanbul), which sold out at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Reflecting contemporary debates about female empowerment and the abuse of male power, this bold new interpretation is written and directed by Zinnie Harris. Webster’s dark tale of bloody treachery is the most thrilling and chilling of the Jacobean revenge tragedies – an exploration of male rage and female resistance as two brothers try and control their sister, block her marriage and repress her agency with fatal results.

‘You should know: I sing at parties, I wear colourful dresses, I am headstrong, I won’t wear my hair up because you say I should, or do this because you prefer it, in fact I might do the other just to be contrary, but I am utterly and always myself.’ In a new version by Zinnie Harris after John Webster THIS PRODUCTION TAKES PLACE AT TRAMWAY ( 25 ALBERT DRIVE, G41 2PE )

The duchess of malfi a play john webster