Director Maria Aberg excelled when she brought us a hippy love-fest inspired production of As You Like It at the RSC last year.
This time she has reinterpreted this much bleaker John Webster play with its themes of love, lust and slaughter, transforming it from a Jacobean Italy into modern times.
The blood-filled production is truly gripping and at times desperately bleak. The action takes place on a bare stage and behind that sits a white glass lined room which is used to convey some of the most dramatic scenes of the play.
One moment it is the setting for a party, and then a brothel where a brutal killing takes place. There are dramatic poisonings one moment and Champagne quaffing the next and as curtains are drawn across it, you are left wondering what would be happening in the box next.
It is also utilised to great effect as a backdrop for film clips, which along with smart choreography and haunting melodies, encapsulate the strong themes of misogyny, power and lust which flow throughout.
The plot follows the tragic life of Vittoria, a sexual, lustful woman who loses interest in her husband and begins an affair with married Bracciano. Together they plot murder and as their families intervene, the blood shed begins.
In this adaption Vittoria’s scheming brother Flaminio is a woman, emphasising that women too can adopt a misogynistic persona in an ill-conceived attempt to get further in life in a male-dominated world.
Laura Elphinstone as an androgynous Flaminio who plots murder and destroys the lives of those around her, commands the stage in this role, her dynamic speeches enthralling.
And there is a strong cast throughout but it is Kirsty Bushell as the alluring and tragic Vittoria who is most outstanding as she transforms from a confident and brash femme fatalle clad in heels, fake blonde wig and glittery dress to an oppressed, abused woman in a more naked, natural form.
Her pleas to the cardinal during her trial were particularly moving and provided a reminder as to how women around the world are still suffering the same condemnations because of their sexuality today.
This was edge-of-the-seat theatre from beginning to end and the strongest production to come out of the RSC’s Roaring Girls season so far.
