‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore

Globe Theatre, London SE1

3/5

“LOVE me or kill me,” is the mutual vow which Giovanni and his sister Annabella exchange in ’Tis Pity She’s A Whore before they quickly get on with the business.

With incest as its central motif, it is no surprise that John Ford’s 1630s tragedy subsequently disappeared from the stage until the last century when,  equally unsurprisingly, it became one of the most often performed plays of Shakespeare’s later contemporaries.

Here Michael Longhurst’s production, in the candle-lit and almost claustrophobic intimacy of the gem which is the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker theatre, might have been expected to squeeze out every iota of tragic intensity. 

In fact, the conventional elements of Jacobean tragedy — poisoning, murder, trickery, sexual intrigue and a gloss of general horror — are handled with a kind of airy bravado. 

The comic sub-plot, with Bergetto as a clownish suitor to Annabella, is given full rein even though he meets his bloody fate in an unfortunate mistake well before most of the other main characters.

Max Bennett and Fiona Button as the doomed lovers display an engaging adolescent innocence even in their naked romp in bed. But it’s an innocence that is savagely ripped away by a society mired in religious and social corruption.

Where Ford’s dramatic verse is often awkwardly self-conscious, the playwright shows convincing emotional power when the pregnant Annabella, married off to the unsuspecting Soranzo (Stefano Braschi), faces down her murderously enraged husband.

Of the many Shakespearean echoes  in the play, Philip Combus’s efficiently sadistic Vasquez registers an intriguing variation on Iago, exiting triumphantly with the boast: “I rejoice that a Spaniard outwent an Italian in revenge.”

Ford competes with his contemporaries in the final obligatory revenge tragedy bloodbath, which commences with Giovanni offering Annabella’s heart on the end of his dagger to Soranzo like some symbolic kebab.

The final marionette company dance underlines the play’s portrayal of a world where impersonal fate, not religious faith — “a dream, a dream!” —  jerks humanity’s strings. 

Runs until December 7, box office: shakespearesglobe.com