The White Devil

The problem with a satisfactory theatre trip is that it leaves you craving more. Yesterday was my third trip to Stratford's Swan theatre this year, each time to see plays from the roaring girls season, it possibly won't be the last. In my corner of England (by which I mean the middle) and for our trio of theatre going friends the RSC generally has the most to offer, and this season has been a cracker. 'The Roaring Girl' was particularly good - we came out of that fizzing with excitement and sharing an enthusiasm which hasn't abated even 6 months later. 'Arden of Faversham' was excellent as well, and 'The White Devil' - well apart from anything else it makes me wish I'd managed to catch 'The Duchess of Malfi' when BBC4 did there Webster season. What makes 'The a Roaring Girl' feel so unique and subversive is the character of Moll and the feeling in this production at least that she's more interested in freedom than sex. She remains desirable but aloof, not for her the scrambling after bed partners or the complications of love affairs that beset the other characters - what she does have is a lot of fun - it leads to uncomfortable questions about the roles we still enforce on women. In Arden of Faversham Alice is the discontented wife who's an advert for why divorce us a good thing. The only way she can be with her lover is to have her husband murdered, predictably it doesn't turn out well. Arden isn't a particularly nice man so it's quite possible to sympathise with Alice to a degree but her complicity in using her lovers sister, Susan, as bait in her husbands murder sort of puts paid to that. Susan is property and treated as such which is shocking.

'The White Devil' has one of those fairly incomprehensible revenge tragedy plots where everyone ends up dead at the end and which again makes you think divorce has to be a far better plan than wholesale murder. Duke Bracciano is having an affair with Vittoria who suggests to him that it might be quite handy if her husband and his wife were disposed of. Being Italian and in a revenge tragedy he immediately puts this in hand rather than sitting down with a nice cup of tea and having sensible second thoughts. The Duchess Isabella then turns up, gets treated abominably but still try's to make peace between her husband and brother. By way of thanks her husband has her poisoned, the poison administered through a portrait of himself that she's in the habit of kissing. Isabella's brother, Francisco vows revenge, Vittoria is put on trial for the murder of her husband which has been overseen by her sibling Flaminio who works for Duke Bracciano. Despite a spirited defence on her own part Cardinal, soon to be pope Monticelso has Vittoria sent to a house for penitent whores. After a jealous scene Bracciano flees with her to Padua, marries her, and us then poisoned by his ex brother in law. Flaminio kills their other sibling Marcello, which sends their mother mad, then forms a suicide pact with Vittoria and Zanche which turns out to be a trick. Just when it looks like the killing is done with Francisco's henchmen turn up and kill all 3 of them, and then they in turn are dispatched on the orders of the new duke, Isabella's young son, who ends the play by kicking the pile of bodies on stage and laughing.

This production takes a determinedly feminist stance on the play, using it to showcase how gender inequality and the sex industry damage society. Maria Aberg, the director, chose to recast the male Flaminio as a woman, which worked for us, though as we weren't familiar with the play beforehand it's hard to judge how much difference it makes. The setting is contemporary - which led the RSC to send out a warning email about the level of violence (it was nowhere near as violent or graphic as I expected in the end, the email felt unnecessary ) and effective. The play opens with Vittoria dressing on stage, transforming herself into an exotic object of desire in pink wig, gold mini dress, and heels - her sexuality is both how she gets what she wants but also how she's kept in her place. The home for penitent whores is full of beaten and discarded women which certainly underlines the double standards by which we measure male and female behaviour, but the fate of the good wife and mother Isabella is hardly encouraging either. Even Flaminio who steps outside the traditional roles of virgin or whore doesn't escape punishment (though as a violent killer that's probably a good thing).

On the whole it worked for me, the feminist message was preaching to the choir as far as I'm concerned but it was done well. We certainly came out with enough to think about to keep us going over the hours drive home. Changing Flaminio's gender served to demonstrate how complicit women can be in the exploitation of their own sex, or even their individual sexuality, but I think it also raised interesting questions about sibling relationships, and even more interesting questions about how gender blind the theatre could be.

Arden of Faversham

It's a month since I saw this (how's that for organisation...) which I find mildly shocking - how time flies and all that. After not making it over to Stratford for a couple of years this was the second trip in a month, among other things it makes me realise how much I've missed going to the theatre and exhibitions. It's the travel costs which have really done for me, and whilst I'm happy enough wondering around an exhibition on my own I really want to share a performance with someone. The theatre simply isn't as enjoyable without the post performance conversation, never mind the moments during the performance that need to be shared and we're all so busy at the moment...

Anyways, the first play was 'The Roaring Girl' which kicked off a season of plays featuring strong female protagonists - it's brilliant, not so much the play itself which is perhaps a little bit patchy, but the roaring girl herself - her combination of swagger and independence set her apart form the majority of female roles (ever) and is, I assume, absolutely unique for the time she was written. What the RSC have chosen to do with the play makes the very best of it as well (go and see it!). 'Arden of Faversham' feels more traditional (both plays are based on real women), Alice is dissatisfied with her husband Arden, he's a prosperous business man who's just acquired a whole lot of what had been common land, so in many ways life is good for her - plenty of money and status - but not much fulfilment. Alice also has a lover - Mosby, she also lives in a time and place where the only way out of marriage is death so Arden has to go.

Arden turns out not to be a very likable character, his actions over the former common ground are dispossessing people and one of them is pissed off enough to curse him - he really doesn't have a way with women. That he's not very likable helps the audience sympathise a little with Alice whilst she does her best to recruit would be assassins - it turns out not to be very easy to dispose of your husband (news of which should come as a relief to husbands generally). Eventually her efforts succeed and Arden is killed, his body dumped on the cursed plot of land but retribution swiftly follows. Alice seems to feel genuine repentance over the murder which in a way is disappointing; it would have been much better for her if she'd realised earlier that she might regret her actions, and maybe more interesting for the audience if she hadn't felt much remorse.

More disturbing than the murder (from my point of view) is the way the Alice and Mosby use Mosby's sister Susan as bait in their plans. Susan is essentially Mosby's property to dispose of as he sees fit. There are two men interested in her, the extremely creepy Clarke who has a way with poisons, and Michael - Arden's servant - who is swayed between loyalty to his master and passion for Susan. He's rather more appealing than Clarke who Susan clearly wants nothing to do with and we had half an expectation that she might not mind Michael as a husband. Actually she's  not interested in him either but between them the actions of her brother and would be lover are enough to see her condemned as part of their plot. That Susan has absolutely no control over her destiny at all is for me the biggest tragedy of the play.

The Roaring Girl

I've been to the theatre for what feels like the first time in an age, which is a shame because it's something I love doing. The problem isn't so much opportunity as cost - we went to Stratford last night where the average ticket price without concessions hovers around £30, throw in petrol, parking, and programmes (forget having an ice cream) and that adds up to a lot of books. There are no discounts for those of us who occupy the squeezed middle, and whilst I'm not looking for sympathy because I can't afford to see as much early seventeenth century drama as I might like, it's not very motivating to know you're working harder than ever but can afford less than ever.

The Roaring Girl was written by Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton in 1612 in response to the real life Mary Frith. Court records hold various accounts of Mary's, also known as Moll Cutpurse, exploits. She was known to dress as a man to go drinking and was picked up on various occasions for theft though she might also have been a criminal informer as well. She was certainly notorious in her own lifetime - hence the play, and thanks to Middleton and Dekker is an interesting footnote in history.

'The Roaring Girl' isn't the best play ever written - see here for a synopsis - but it is fascinating. The real Moll is lost to history but she may not have been as interesting as Dekker and Middleton's version. This Moll is a personality, she has all the swagger and confidence of someone who knows they own the streets, and of someone utterly comfortable in their own body and identity. She's one of the few characters in the play not motivated by sex (or love). Love (or sex) would be a distraction that might diminish her independence. This Moll is a truly independent character, she's also brash, intelligent, transgressive, notorious, and altogether unique.

I don't agree with  The Telegraph when their critic says this doesn't come off as a jolly romp. Last night's audience seemed fairly convinced that it did. We also liked the Victorian setting, Moll is essentially shown as a contemporary character - which in many ways she is, and that works better against a late Victorian setting than it could in Jacobean costume. It means the cast can break out into very much more modern song and dance numbers (bare with, it works even if it sounds off putting) in a way that makes some sort of sense (and is a lot of fun, we were delighted by how much fun this was to watch). The Victorian scenery is an effective prompt to remind the audience of how women were treated, and still makes Moll's cross dressing feel shocking - her Victorian boys outfits are both more and less revealing than seventeenth century doublet and hose would be, and in keeping with her independent spirit she doesn't feel bound to any particular time.

The end result was that we left feeling so inspired that we both declared we'd happily watch it again (rare) and have decided to go and see Arden of Faversham in a couple of weeks time (expense be damned).