London.

‘TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE
by John Ford.

Barbican (Silk Street Theatre) Silk Street EC2Y 8DS To 10 March 2012.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm (some performances sold out).
Runs 2hr No interval.

TICKETS: 0844 243 0785.
www.barbican.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 February.

Horror-show drama with cinematic fluidity.
She was most recently a whore last year in Leeds, where, after allowing for the interval, Jonathan Munby’s production ran 25 minutes longer than Declan Donnellan’s for Cheek by Jowl, creating a home for respectable citizen Florio and his incestuous offspring that clergymen visited and where sexual secrets were confined to a sunken room.

Donnellan goes inside the siblings’ heated relationship, designer Nick Ormerod placing the whole action in an en-suite bedroom. Space is used non-realistically, sober-suited characters stand around; intruders or outside distractions for a couple whose passions are locked secretly on each other. Often, music or voices are heard from outside the walls.

Annabella and her brother Giovanni admit their mutual desire across the room, other characters assembled between them, as at other times figures stand around the room, unaware of what’s going on. A large bed, the physical centre and symbolic sphere of the action, is suffused, along with much else, in red by Judith Greenwood’s lighting.

The pair lie in their own world beneath a duvet while Annabella’s marriage is discussed around them. Donnellan emphasises her active role in the affair. In comparison Jack Gordon’s Giovanni remains creepily enigmatic, someone whose brooding would end in horrific violence. It’s a contrast with the controlled attacks of Laurence Spellman’s loyal hitman Vasques.

Surrounded by the wall-posters any young adult might have, Lydia Wilson’s Annabella has a physical energy in her dancing, serpentine movement and cartwheeling triumphalism. Donnellan cuts a sub-plot involving a sympathetic simpleton, Hammering home the horror of rampant desire in an already corrupt society.

From the start his staging sets the essential opposition: Giovanni argues with a Friar, but his attention’s all on his sister. Reason has no chance here. Annabella’s husband Soranzo starts by exalting her as worshipped Madonna, in a kitschy image; later she’s raised high as whore, writhing in underwear.

The small role of Cardinal is retained though his main contribution, the epilogue containing the play’s title, is cut. The image of authority is present, but not the words of conventional morality in a production exploring an emotional tempest from its core.

Hippolita: Suzanne Burden.
Florio: David Collings.
Donado: Ryan Ellsworth.
Gratiano: Jimmy Fairhurst.
Giovanni: Jack Gordon.
Friar: Nyasha Hatendi.
Soranzo: Jack Hawkins.
Putana: Lizzie Hopley.
Cardinal/Doctor: Peter Moreton.
Grimaldi: David Mumeni.
Vasques: Laurence Spellman.
Annabella: Lydia Wilson.

Director: Declan Donnellan.
Designer: Nick Ormerod.
Lighting: Judith Greenwood.
Sound/Composer: Nick Powell.
Movement: Jane Gibson.
Voice coach: Emma Woodvine.
Fight director: Jonathan Waller.
Associate director: Owen Horsley.
Associate lighting: Kristina Hjelm.
Associate sound: Mark Cunningham.

2012-02-22 11:48:56