The malcontent

This is one of the plays we were supposed to read in a revenge tragedy course that I took, but after I had purchased it, the professor dropped it from the syllabus in favor of Titus Andronicus. My interest in Tudor revenge tragedy was sparked by the (brilliant) cinematic adaptation of The Revenger's Tragedy, and none of the other examples of the genre have ever quite lived up to that one-- full of wit, melancholy, and cheerful violence. (Well, Hamlet is better, of course, but it's not exactly a typical revenge tragedy.) Still, I was looking forward to this one, but as I was reading it, I was struck by the fact it sure was taking a while for the revenging to happen. Well, it never did. Marston wrote a subversive take on the genre, where show more everyone reconciles in the end. I don't know if it was good or not; I just wanted my bloodbath! (originally written January 2008) show less

Had a hard time getting into this one. It suffered a little bit from having a few of the main characters have fairly similar looking names. There were some clever phrases, though, and some pretty good snatches here and there.

Extremely funny in the way the complex plot comes together at the end. To me, the best of this series of revivals.

A weirdly post-modern play that was pretty funny.