While I’m not sure many of us can relate to the experience of being a widowed Duchess of the Amalfi coast, the theme of male family members feeling overly entitled to controlling their female relation’s body does certainly feel stickily modern. Amongst other elements, it is the timelessness of this depiction of familial misogyny that has allowed John Webster’s 1612 play The Duchess of Malfi to stick in our cultural memory and it’s why the play lends itself so well to modern adaptations – most recently in late 2024, with Jodie Whittaker as the Duchess.
These adaptations now include UMDS’ new version of the play, which is a watchable, if a bit unimaginative, take on Webster’s story.
The year is 1504 and the eponymous Duchess of Malfi (Elise Lane), having been widowed at an unstated time prior, is eligible for remarriage. This is to the ire of her two brothers – the Machiavellian Cardinal (Will Knight), and the deranged Duke Ferdinand (Euan Krasinski) – who vow to observe her and ensure she never remarries. However, unbeknownst to her brothers, the Duchess has fallen in love with her lowly steward, Antonio (Tom Pyle), whom she marries in secret and has several children with.
When adapting The Duchess of Malfi, it’s imperative that the Duchess herself really works, and I’m pleased to say that UMDS’ Duchess, played with a righteous fervour by Elise Lane, is wonderful to watch. The Duchess has frequently been posited as a feminist character, and Lane’s version follows suit, holding her Duchess with boldness; while several scenes see her brothers attempt to bully her into submission, Lane’s Duchess meets their gazes and holds her composure, even when it’s visible that this isn’t easy for her.
This Duchess is more than a widow struggling with familial expectations. Her romance with Antonio is well-staged, and their earlier scenes in the play delve into rom-com territory without feeling tonally inappropriate.
More delightful still is the Duchess’ relationship with her maid-servant, Cariola (Lucy McNulty). Depictions of female kinship rarely go unsullied, particularly in fiction written by men, and yet Cariola and the Duchess are continually loyal to one another. And, accordingly, Lane and McNulty play up the sistership, giggling together and confiding in one another. During one scene, the two of them and Antonio discuss the tribulations of romance in a scene that’s downright modern in the way it frames a group of young people sat together on a bed chatting about love.
It’s these sorts of moments, allowing the characters to interact with one another, that make the play’s first half easy to sit through. When it means to be funny, it is funny; when it means to be romantic, it is romantic; when it means to be tense, it is tense. There’s a good grip on the things that make The Duchess of Malfi an enduring classic.
Of course, such pleasantries are not permitted to last. Through the scheming of her brothers, the Duchess is eventually captured and murdered by Ferdinand’s spy, Daniel de Bosola (Merle Fraser). Given the titular character’s rather early exit from the story, the majority of the second half mostly focuses instead on Ferdinand and Bosola, the play’s two most turbulent characters.
Ferdinand’s is a tough role to play: his wild temperament and psychosexual fixation on his sister make him an unsavoury character. And Krasinski certainly gives it his all, hands shaking and genuine tears flowing from his eyes as he rages. Unfortunately, the play’s more faulty scenes are the same ones that involve characters suffering. While I understand that The Duchess of Malfi is, of course, a tragedy, that doesn’t make it any less difficult to sit through several scenes involving actors rolling around on the stage, intent on depicting their ‘suffering’ whilst, at times, stumbling through the early modern dialogue.
It doesn’t particularly help that the play is already Ferdinand-heavy in its latter acts, and UMDS’ staging adds in several extra scenes for Ferdinand that could have been cut or shortened. The melodrama’s just a little too much for me.
This is a shame, given how the play has clearly been looked over with a critical eye and necessary cuts have been made in order to edit the script down into something that can fit into two hours. Many of these edits are obvious (the madmen scene is often cut from productions due to its ridiculousness), or are sensible changes made to cut down on extra content and shorten the play’s runtime, meaning that several minor characters are either condensed into one character or are otherwise entirely cut from the play.
This does result in a somewhat reduced role for the Cardinal, as the plotline involving his mistress, Julia, is entirely cut – but the resulting production is leaner and ultimately better for it.
On the subject of changes, Bosola is, in this adaptation, played by a female actor, and the play’s writing has been altered slightly to account for this change. This is an interesting alteration, and does lend itself towards a feminist reading; it is easier to imagine a change of heart from a female Bosola given the heavily gendered dynamics of the play’s conflict. It also helps that Fraser’s performance was always enjoyable: her Bosola is always quick with a sly comment and an ironic smile, and her change from scheming spy to crusader on the Duchess’ behalf is convincing and impactful.
There aren’t, however, many other elements that really make this adaptation stand out from others. I can’t say there’s anything particularly wrong with performing a mostly-faithful adaptation of such a play when it has been famed for its writing. After all, wouldn’t any sweeping alterations or unnecessary pieces of staging upstage Webster’s masterwork? But still, it’s easy to think that this play is coasting off the quality of Webster’s writing.
Several choices in the staging have clearly been made in order to add UMDS’ own spin upon the play, but they’re hardly ground-breaking. The decision to make all of the ‘evil’ characters wear black, for instance, felt a little ham-fisted given how clearly the text of the play presents which characters you’re intended to sympathise with. It did, however, result in an admittedly cool scene for Bosola, whose moral heel-turn is marked by her character removing a piece of black outerwear to reveal a white undershirt.
Another interesting element was the way the white bedsheet-strewn stage uses backlighting behind the sheets, projecting the actor’s shadows; I just wish it had been more consequential. As it stands, the shadow scenes are largely used for unnecessary exposition. As was the staging that required a large bed to be carried on and off stage; the bed certainly added something material for the actors to bounce off, but needed several minutes of set-up which were, to be frank, a little awkward, as the audience sat in the dark hearing the bed bounce against the sides of the stage.
If there is one last thing I could criticise the staging for, it’s that a large portion of the play’s final quarter takes place on the floor; classic for a Jacobean revenge tragedy, there are bodies strewn everywhere as the play wraps up. While I was seated in the front row and had no problem witnessing the drama, a friend of mine was seated further back and complained to me afterwards about being unable to watch a decent amount of the conclusion.
Regardless, this was still a perfectly watchable version of Webster’s classic, even if its shortcomings could make for awkward watching at times.
