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The White Devil
Aug. 17th, 2014 09:25 pmAnother trip to Stratford-upon-Avon for SM and myself; this time to see The White Devil by John Webster. It was performed in the Swan Theatre as part of the "Roaring Girls" season which is staging plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries.
It's not a performance I would recommend. The staging was well done and very imaginative, and the dancing was good. The music was possibly the highlight, extremely atmospheric. But the play itself had nothing much going for it. There was no character development and no real twist to the plot. For me there was no character to identify with or feel sympathetic towards, and no involvement at all. The RSC had sent out an email warning about graphic violence, but it certainly wasn't any worse than a number of plays that I've seen, and seeing the death of various characters I had little interest in didn't bother me.
The play was staged in modern times, which I'm happy with, although, as with many such performances there were points where the actions/words of the characters didn't really make sense in a modern context. In order to emphasise the misogyny that the play highlights, Flaminio, Vittoria's brother, becomes her sister. If anything this was just confusing - Flaminio's role doesn't fit that of a woman and would really have required the play to be rewritten for it to make sense. And at least, the pedant within me feels, they could have renamed her Flaminia.
Earlier this year SM saw one of the other plays in the "Roaring Girls" season, Arden of Faversham, which he enjoyed. This play fell short of our expectations.
It's not a performance I would recommend. The staging was well done and very imaginative, and the dancing was good. The music was possibly the highlight, extremely atmospheric. But the play itself had nothing much going for it. There was no character development and no real twist to the plot. For me there was no character to identify with or feel sympathetic towards, and no involvement at all. The RSC had sent out an email warning about graphic violence, but it certainly wasn't any worse than a number of plays that I've seen, and seeing the death of various characters I had little interest in didn't bother me.
The play was staged in modern times, which I'm happy with, although, as with many such performances there were points where the actions/words of the characters didn't really make sense in a modern context. In order to emphasise the misogyny that the play highlights, Flaminio, Vittoria's brother, becomes her sister. If anything this was just confusing - Flaminio's role doesn't fit that of a woman and would really have required the play to be rewritten for it to make sense. And at least, the pedant within me feels, they could have renamed her Flaminia.
Earlier this year SM saw one of the other plays in the "Roaring Girls" season, Arden of Faversham, which he enjoyed. This play fell short of our expectations.
