Two kinds of musicality can make or mar a production: the music of the human voice; the music of instruments and/or soundscape effects. Both kinds seesaw from high to low throughout Fiona Buffini’s vivid new production of John Webster’s 1612 revenge-style tragedy.
At their considerable best, Jon Nicholls’s compositions texture atmosphere and sharpen emotion: the first kiss between the widowed Duchess and the man she aims secretly to marry against the explicit commands of Duke and Cardinal – her power-abusing siblings – is enhanced by the note that lingers beyond their lips’ touch. Later, though, as these same vicious brothers react furiously to their informant Bosola’s news that the Duchess has secretly given birth to a son, Nicholls has a long, sustained tone play over the dialogue. Rather than sonically shading the action, this deadens the tempestuous rhythms of the exchange.
As for voice, the actors’ cadences carry sense clearly across short sections of text. But Webster’s language is dense; characters’ thoughts often stretch across extended arcs of allusion and imagery. Here, the company doesn’t always achieve the necessary range and variety of tonal colour to fully communicate meaning (a general difficulty, nowadays). On press night, finer points of the plot became hard to grasp; characters and situations, although never less than interesting, were seldom entirely engaging. In the course of the run, increasing familiarity with the lines may overcome this.
That said, Buffini’s production achieves an intensity of vision worthy of Webster’s extremes-buffeting play. The gentle love between Beatriz Romilly’s girlishly innocent, death-doomed Duchess and her ill-fated husband (upright Jamie Satterthwaite) contrasts with the incarnate evil of the murderous Duke (Chris Jared blazes thwarted passions) and Cardinal (lascivious smugness from Patrick Brennan) and with the self-serving malevolence of Bosola (seething Matthew Wait). Neil Murray’s sparse yet sumptuous design and Mark Jonathan’s cross-hatched lighting succinctly convey the drama’s moral tensions.
