The Revenger's Tragedy

Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy has many classic ingredients of the genre of Revenge Tragedy, so popular in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean England: An obsession with vengeance, with death, with both moral and physical decay, a court riddled with intrigues and illicit sexual desire, where sycophancy hides jealous and vengeful ambitions. Typically set in Italy, Tourneur's Italians are exaggeratedly conniving, revengeful and bloodthirsty.

The Revenger's Tragedy is saturated with duplicit characters and plots of revenge. Vindice, the central character, is bent upon revenge on the Duke for the murder of his mistress Gloriana. He edges his way into the bosom of the court by disguising himself and gaining employment as a pander to the Duke's son Lussurioso. Lussurioso, heir to the Duke's throne, is a foppish young man intent upon seducing Vindice's own sister. His jealous and ambitious step sisters' are busy plotting his murder meanwhile, to secure their brother's succession. The brother is in gaol under suspended sentence for rape however. The Duke's bastard son is adulterous with the Duchess herself, while the Duke is pursuing his own fancies, encouraged and entrapped by the disguised Vindice. All of the court is deceived and deceiving, and this rotten core only decays further as the play goes on.

This production of The Revenger's Tragedy balances the mixture of horror and farce extremely well. Although it calls itself a tragedy, as the body count rises through the second half the play steers a course not for catharsis but for comedy. Gene Perelson's (Vindice) excellent performance conveys the mania in Vindice's character, and the perturbing sense that Vindice enjoys his revenge just a little too much. When the play demands drama there is no shortage of it from this cast, but they manage to resist an hysterical pitch by recognising comedy where it lurks in the macabre excesses of Vindice's exploits. Dicky Chalmers's Spurio very skilfully managed this balance as well. The character of Lussurioso is a very strong performance by Jean Meiring. He makes good use of the space in the OFS, and his delivery is clear and well expressed.

The costumes and props for the production were unfortunately somewhat unsatisfactory, and let down an otherwise strong performance. Although individually the costumes were well suited to the characters - a rather decadent smoking jacket for Lussurioso, vampish black and black leather for the evil sisters - I could find no idea behind them. Different characters belonged to entirely different times, and this detracted from the cohesion of the production. Similarly the props ranged from the traditional tankards, and the skull, to a toilet that did not seem to have any particular relevance to the story, or any theme of this production.

Nevertheless The Revenger's Tragedy is a great play, and this production handles its difficult material very well. The complex of plots and sub-plots, and dense and difficult verse of much Jacobean Tragedy, is often enough to dissuade students from even attempting to put the plays on. This production pulls it off very well, and is well worth watching! Emily Hardiment 24.5.00