John Webster (1)

The White Devil

A play reliant on intricate family relations and a web of lust, deceit, ambition and vengeful urges to rival any play I've ever come across. It has the classic elements of its genre - murder, ghosts, play-within-a-play, revenge - but it feels different in some important respects. There's a whole conspiracy of revengers, most of whom seem nearly or equally as reprehensible as the play's blatant villains and some of whom appear to get away unpunished. There's only a half change show more of rule to restore sanity and righteousness - and it's not clear whether the next generation really will turn out any better. Even more pessimistic than its antecedents.

Who's the White Devil? (A devil in disguise, considered more dangerous than an openly evil person.) Could be Vittoria, Bracciano, Flamineo - but I'm proposing Monticelso, the vengeous Cardinal with a book full of the names of criminals, classified by type, who gets a murderer pardoned so he can use him for more murder, and ends up elected Pope.

I should go see a performance of this. show less

Other sins only speak, murder shreiks out:
The element of water moistens the earth,
But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

Oh mercy, revenge upon the cursed Vengeful in five sumptuous acts of poetry, racy bits and bloodshed. The initial revengers are a creepy pair of powerful brothers miffed that their sis has moved on from bereavement and is now happily shacking up. They enlist the world's most literate assassin for the wet work. I began this a month ago and made it half way. I show more started over and completed the piece this evening. Touch your caps to the lyrical wizardry of John Webster. Extra points should be awarded for use of a poisoned book. show less

I don't know what John Webster was on, but I want some of it. His plotting is so much more populist than Shakespeare, which ordinarily I would count as a mark against him, yet 'The Duchess' has a rare, guttural power that elevates it above the rest of Webster's output. A joy.

Reread for a class I am teaching. This is one of my all-time favorite Jacobean tragedies. Forbidden passions, secret marriages, spies, incestuous feelings, political machinations, a malcontent, lycanthropy, torture, and murder--and on top of it all, excellent writing. What more can you ask? I love teaching this play because it touches on all the aspects of the genre and of early modern court society that are so significant to understanding the period. Daniel de Bosola is my second all-time show more favorite villain (the first being Edmund in King Lear); I had the good chance of seeing him played by Ian McKellan at the National in 1985.

Ferdinand: Women like that part that hath not a bone in it.
Duchess: Fie, sir!
Ferdinand: I mean the tongue.

(How can you not love it?)

I just wish there was a DVD version. Back in the 1970s I saw a television production starring Vanessa Redgrave, but so far, it is not available. I'm waiting for one of those BBC collections--"Vanessa Redgrave at the BBC"--to come out. They've done them on Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, and Maggie Smith, and the series is wonderful; that's how I've gotten ahold of some of the classic plays that I teach ('Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Country Wife, etc.). But so far, the students have been enjoying reading scenes aloud. show less