At the climax of John Ford’s most notorious work, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Giovanni brings onstage the heart of his sister – and lover – Annabella, skewered on the point of his dagger. In this production, the heart is a sheep’s – glistening, horribly real. By contrast, Giovanni wears a shirt covered almost completely in pinkish splotches of obviously fake blood, which sit oddly with the fleshy reality of the heart itself.
In many ways, this mixture of the raw and the slightly ridiculous is symptomatic of the treatment of the play as a whole: The contemporary setting is often elegantly realised; elements which, if mishandled, could be seen as anachronistic – such as the reliance upon the moral and spiritual guidance of Charlie Hooper’s Friar Bonaventura – blend seamlessly into the world the play establishes. There are, however, moments where modernisation is misplaced. Take for example, Giovanni tearfully vlogging about his desire for his sister (imagine the YouTube comments) in place of a more traditional soliloquy.
In opposition to this pointedly contemporary touch, a cardinal visits, dressed somewhat incongruously in ecclesiastical vestments, a bizarre relic of that play’s roots in its seventeenth-century vision of Catholic Parma. Fantasy sequences involving Kathy Stocker’s Annabella are also variable in effectiveness – initially intriguing, later instances seem more like over-exploitations of the play’s potential for raunch, and a slightly obvious way of providing insight into characters’ desires.
Gregory Mostyn and Kathy Stocker give accomplished performances as the central couple, particularly in the play’s first half, where they skilfully negotiate the innocence of falling in love with the guilt associated with forbidden passion, and the second we see Luke Howarth’s machiavel, Vasques, emerge as a plotting, scheming force for destruction. Unfortunately, several scenes are conducted all in the same tone of heightened emotion, which can make them a strain to watch, as well as occasionally lapsing into melodrama. When naturalism takes over from self-conscious rhetoricism, the effect is compelling.
There are many interesting directorial decisions and apt modernising touches in this interpretation of ‘Tis Pity, as well it holding the singular distinction of being possibly the first time that the incest taboo has been upstaged by an unorthodox use of a condiment. Any updating of a classic will present its challenges, and this production is a pacey, punchy take on Ford’s tragedy which shows that it retains its infamous power to both shock and entertain.
