The Revenger's Tragedy
It was long attributed to Cyril Tourneur, but "The consensus candidate for authorship of The Revenger’s Tragedy at present is Thomas Middleton, although this is a knotty issue that is far from settled.
"[1] A vivid and often violent portrayal of lust and ambition in an Italian court, the play typifies the satiric tone and cynicism common in many Jacobean tragedies.
The play fell out of favour before the restoration of the theaters in 1660; however, it experienced a revival in the 20th century among directors and playgoers who appreciated its affinity with the temper of modern times.
Vindice's brother Hippolito brings news: Lussurioso, the Duke's heir by his first marriage, has asked him if he can find a procurer to obtain a young virgin he lusts after.
His plan is to procure the Duke an unusual lady – a richly clothed effigy, her head, the skull of Vindice's beloved, is covered with poison.
The Duke is poisoned by kissing the supposed lady and is subsequently stabbed by Vindice after being forced to watch the Duchess betray him with Spurio.
A second group of murderers including Supervacuo, Ambitioso, and Spurio then arrives; they discover their intended victims already dead, and then turn on and kill each other.
It keeps the basic Senecan design brought to English drama by Thomas Kyd: a young man is driven to avenge an elder's death (in this case it's a lover, Gloriana, instead), which was caused by the villainy of a powerful older man; the avenger schemes to effect his revenge, often by morally questionable means; he finally succeeds in a bloodbath that costs him his own life as well.
Already by 1606, the enthusiasm that accompanied James I's assumption of the English throne had begun to give way to the beginnings of dissatisfaction with the perception of corruption in his court.
This trend towards court-based tragedy was contemporary with a change in dramatic tastes toward the satiric and cynical, beginning before the death of Elizabeth I but becoming ascendant in the few years following.
The episcopal ban on verse satire in 1599 appears to have impelled some poets to a career in dramaturgy;[4] writers such as John Marston and Thomas Middleton brought to the theatres a lively sense of human frailty and hypocrisy.
While The Revenger's Tragedy was apparently performed by an adult company at the Globe Theatre, its bizarre violence and vicious satire mark it as influenced by the dramaturgy of the private playhouses.
Ignored for many years, and viewed by some critics as the product of a cynical, embittered mind,[6] The Revenger's Tragedy was rediscovered and often performed as a black comedy during the 20th century.
This is such a stereotyped role that it discourages looking at her circumstance in the play, but because she is a widow it could be assumed to include financial insecurity, which could help explain her susceptibility to bribery.
Her daughter also has an exemplary name, Castiza ("chastity"), as if to fall in line with the conventions of the Morality drama, rather than the more individualized characterization seen in their counterparts in Hamlet, Gertrude and Ophelia.
The play is in accordance with the medieval tradition of Christian Complaint, and Elizabethan satire, in presenting sexuality mainly as symptomatic of general corruption.
[9] Michael Neill notes that the name "Spurio" derives from the Latin term "spurius" which does not mean just any illegitimate offspring, but "one born from a noble but spouseless mother to an unknown or plebeian father."
These children, who could not take the paternal name, were called "spurius" because they sprang in effect from the mother alone—the word itself deriving from "spurium," an ancient term for the female genitalia.
[11] The play was published anonymously in 1607; the title page of this edition announced that it had been performed "sundry times" by the King's Men (Loughrey and Taylor, xxv).
[18] The medieval qualities in the play are described by Lawrence J. Ross as, "the contrasts of eternity and time, the fusion of satirically realistic detail with moral abstraction, the emphatic condemnation of luxury, avarice and superfluity, and the lashing of judges, lawyers, usurers and women.
[20] Although The Revenger's Tragedy does not personify this trait with a character, it is mentioned in the opening monologue with a capital, thereby giving it more weight than a regular noun.
Executed on a tight budget (designer Christopher Morley had to use the sets from the previous year's Hamlet), Nunn's production earned largely favourable reviews.
In this production, the actors wore punk costumes and the play took place in a disquieting underground location which resembled both a disused parking lot and a ruined Renaissance building.
In 1976, Jacques Rivette made a loose French film adaptation Noroît, which changed the major characters into women, and included several poetic passages in English; it starred Geraldine Chaplin, Kika Markham, and Bernadette Lafont.
The film is set in a post-apocalyptic Liverpool (in the then future 2011) and stars Christopher Eccleston as Vindice, Eddie Izzard as Lussurioso, Diana Quick as The Duchess and Derek Jacobi as The Duke.
In 2008, two major companies staged revivals of the play: Jonathan Moore directed a new production at the Royal Exchange, Manchester from May to June 2008, starring Stephen Tompkinson as Vindice, while a National Theatre production at the Olivier Theatre was directed by Melly Still, starring Rory Kinnear as Vindice, with music by Adrian Sutton and featuring a soundtrack performed by a live orchestra and DJs Differentgear.
