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The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster Further production details: www.nationaltheatre.org.uk Director Phyllida Lloyd Designer Mark Thompson Lighting Designer Mark Henderson Music Gary Yershon NT Education National Theatre South Bank London SE1 9PX T 020 7452 3388 F 020 7452 3380 E education@ nationaltheatre.org.uk Workpack written by Carl Miller Carl Miller was Textual Advisor on this production Editor Dinah Wood Design Alexis Bailey Patrick Eley Contents What happens in the play 2 The Duchess 2 The text 3 The style of the production 3 Being watched 4 The opening 5 The ‘Mad’ Scene 5 The deaths 6 The language 6 Finding a through line 7 Practical Questions 9 Questions for Discussion 11 Other Resources 12 NT Education Workpack The Duchess of Malfi Duchess of Malfi The
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Page 1: NT Education Workpack The Duchess of Malfi - Mrsjgibbs · PDF filenational theatre education workpack 2 The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster is one of the best-known tragedies from

The Duchess of Malfiby John Webster

Further production details:www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

DirectorPhyllida Lloyd

DesignerMark Thompson

Lighting DesignerMark Henderson

MusicGary Yershon

NT Education National TheatreSouth Bank London SE1 9PX

T 020 7452 3388F 020 7452 3380E education@

nationaltheatre.org.uk

Workpack written by Carl MillerCarl Miller was Textual Advisoron this production

Editor Dinah Wood

Design Alexis BaileyPatrick Eley

Contents

What happens in the play 2

The Duchess 2

The text 3

The style of the production 3

Being watched 4

The opening 5

The ‘Mad’ Scene 5

The deaths 6

The language 6

Finding a through line 7

Practical Questions 9

Questions for Discussion 11

Other Resources 12

NT Education WorkpackThe Duchess of Malfi

Duchess of M

alfi

The

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The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster is one of thebest-known tragedies from the early 17th-centuryEnglish theatre – and one of the few plays from theperiod which has a woman as its central character.Although acclaimed at its first performances, itsreputation has fluctuated since then. After a longperiod when the play was thought too gory, sexualand immoral for the stage, it came back into favourin the second half of the last century, during whichthe role of the Duchess was played by actressesincluding Peggy Ashcroft, Eleanor Bron, Judi Dench,Anastasia Hille, Helen Mirren, Judy Parfitt, JulietStevenson, Janet Suzman and Harriet Walter. Thisnew production is the second time the play hasbeen staged by the National Theatre.

What happens in the playThe young, widowed Duchess of Malfi is instructednever to marry again by her two brothers:Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria and the Cardinal. Withthe help of her waiting woman, Cariola, theDuchess is secretly married to her steward,Antonio.

Bosola, a spy put in the Duchess’ court byFerdinand and the Cardinal, becomes suspiciousthat the Duchess is pregnant. When the Duchessgoes into labour, Antonio tries to keep it secret, butBosola discovers a piece of paper giving details ofthe birth. He informs the Cardinal and Ferdinand,who swear revenge.

Some years later, after the Duchess has secretly hadanother two children, Ferdinand returns to Malfi.

Ferdinand bursts in to his sister’s bedroom andconfronts her, before fleeing in distress. TheDuchess pretends to fire Antonio, but privatelyarranges to meet him in the town of Ancona. Sheadmits to Bosola that Antonio is her husband, andhe passes her plans to the Cardinal and Ferdinand.Banished from Ancona, the Duchess and Antonioseparate – Antonio taking their oldest child withhim. The Duchess, Cariola and the two youngerchildren are captured.

Ferdinand uses Bosola to torture and kill theDuchess. On seeing his sister’s body, however,Ferdinand turns on Bosola. Bosola starts to feelremorse at his action and – in vain – attempts torevive the Duchess.

Assisted by Julia, the Cardinal’s lover, Bosolawitnesses the Cardinal’s admission that he orderedthe Duchess’ murder. Bosola kills Antonio bymistake, then attacks the Cardinal. Ferdinand, whohas gone mad with grief, fatally injures Bosolabefore he and the Cardinal die from their wounds.

Antonio’s friend Delio asks the court to establishthe Duchess and Antonio’s son as his mother’s heir.

The DuchessI’ve loved the play since I was at school. We allhad a very strong sense of what I heard astudent say in the lift on his way in to see theshow – ‘Oh, the Duchess, she’s really cool.’Phyllida Lloyd (Director)

Few plays from the Elizabethan and Jacobeanperiod have women at their centre. This reflectsthe fact that women were prevented by law,religion and custom from active participation inmany areas. One of these was the stage, wherewomen’s roles were played by adolescent boys. Thismay also have affected the scale of roles whichwere written for female characters.

Both of John Webster’s best known plays have asingle woman at their centre, however: VittoriaCorombona (The White Devil) and The Duchess ofMalfi. The Duchess is not the largest role in theplay – both Bosola and Ferdinand have more lines –but ever since the play’s first performances, she hasstolen the show:

For who e’er saw this Duchess live and die,That could get off under a bleeding eye?

The play

Will Keen and Ray Stevenson

photo Ivan Kyncl

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Thomas Middleton (one of Webster’s fellowplaywrights)

Although this was praise for the performance of aboy actor, fifty years later, when women wereallowed onto the stage in England, the Duchessbecame – and has continued to be – a role whichattracted a series of great actresses.

What’s ingenious about the character is thatshe’s very much who she is – her own soul – butshe is also the repository for the feelings ofeveryone around her. You could describe her asrebellious, wilful, naïve, vain – a liar. Or youcould say she’s courageous, modest,compassionate – a whole range of positivequalities.Phyllida Lloyd

The textOne thing that is certain about the version of theplay printed in 1623 is that it is not exactly whatwas performed at the play’s premiere a decadeearlier. Webster says clearly on the title page of thescript that it is:

The perfect and exact copy, with diverse thingsprinted, that the length of the play would notbear in the presentment [presentation].

So not everything in the printed text was originallyperformed. Every production of The Duchess ofMalfi has therefore made decisions about what tocut. This production has concentrated on tellingthe central story of the play as clearly as possible

in one continuous sequence. There is no intervaland the performance lasts just under two hoursand fifteen minutes. The divisions between the fiveacts are marked by music, but the rest of the actionflows fluidly without stopping for changes ofscenery.

The style of the productionIt looks as if there’s no scenery there at all, butactually it’s been designed with attention toevery image.Phyllida Lloyd

The setting for this production is a narrow redplatform running the whole length of the front ofthe stage. Behind this is a shallow gutter, in front ofblack bleachers – large steps which serve for sittingor standing. The only other permanent piece ofscenery is a square glass screen which runs on atrack along the back of the front platform.

Although strikingly modern, this setting emergesfrom a careful understanding of the structure ofthe play and the theatres for which it was originallywritten.

It’s not unlike reading a screenplay for a film.There’s the sense that the location is shifting allthe time. A scene which appears to begin insome formal hall seems to end in some sideroom or private chamber, yet we know that inthe Jacobean theatre there would have been nochange of scenery.Phyllida Lloyd

Director Phyllida Lloyd, designer Mark Thompsonand composer Gary Yershon have all workedtogether many times. The ‘style’ of this productionemerged from discussions between them anddeveloped as rehearsals went on.

The production was moving into highstylization, which was obviously the rightdirection – it was implicit in Mark’s design – andis, in any case, much more to my taste. Music,framing the stage events, creates very goodconditions for moving a production away fromnaturalism, and naturalism is not my cup of tea,especially in verse plays which are already in thestructure of their language loudly proclaimingtheir theatricality.Gary Yershon (Music)

The play

Janet McTeer

photo Ivan Kyncl

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Phyllida Lloyd was also aware of the potential andthe challenges of the Lyttelton Theatre, a largeproscenium arch space which has been criticisedfor lacking atmosphere and being more like amassive cinema than a theatre suited to the size ofhuman actors.

The big danger of the space is that the audiencefeel safely over the other side of theproscenium and are not implicated. We wantedto explore the Lyttelton auditorium and stageas one room, crossing the fourth wall.Phyllida Lloyd

The fourth wall – the imaginary barrier throughwhich the audience in a proscenium arch theatrespy on the action – is breached in many ways in theproduction. Actors speak directly to the audiencein soliloquies and asides. There is often an onstage‘audience’ on the large black steps at the back ofthe stage who can be seen and heard responding tothe action: when Antonio is awarded his prize inAct One, or when Ferdinand tells the Duchess hehas found her a husband in Act Three, for example.When the Duchess and Antonio part, outsideAncona, Antonio and her son climb off the stage,out through the fourth wall and into theauditorium to escape.

The costumes are modern, with a hint of Italy.Again, this was part of an organic approach to theplay between the creative team.

The talk was of the Guccis, The Godfathermovies, etc. This Italian theme informed early

discussions about the music and its place in theproduction.Gary Yershon

It would never have occurred to me to producethe play in Jacobean costume. The Duchess ofMalfi was a well known story in 1613, and oneknown to have taken place in Italy a hundredyears before that. Yet it was performed in thecostume of the audience – in modern dress. Sowe are aiming for the same sense of a sharedexperience between audience and stage. It’s notabout connecting it with current affairs orcurrent events, but trying to strip away thethings which might stop the audiencerecognising that these characters are from theirown world.Phyllida Lloyd

Being watchedYour darkest actions – nay your privat’stthoughts – Will come to light.Ferdinand (Act One)

The sense of a world in which privacy is impossibleinforms many aspects of the production.

The simple black steps at the back are in someway a mirror of the audience in the auditorium.They serve as a reminder that these charactersare actually never in private. Even when theythink they are alone, they are not. There’s onlyone point in the play when they’re not beingoverlooked – when we turn the lights out.Phyllida Lloyd

Webster’s original audience would have been usedto a kind of darkness Londoners hardly experiencenow that a permanent glow of artificial light coversthe city. Even indoors it is rare to have a completeblackout. This production takes special measures tocreate a level of darkness which is normallyimpossible to achieve in a modern theatre.

The glass screen reminds the audience whencharacters observe others without their knowledge:Cariola watches Antonio as the Duchess woos him,Ferdinand watches the Duchess in her bedroom,Bosola – who is a professional spy in the Duchess’household – hears the Cardinal’s confession fromthis hiding place.

The choices made about the role of Delio link tothis aspect of the production.

The play

Janet McTeer

photo Ivan Kyncl

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We came up with the idea that he’s a journalist– he’s here to find out about this family, toexpose what’s going on. That gave me reasonsfor certain things in the play: why he returnswith Ferdinand [in Act Three], why he’s notalways there for Antonio.Jonathan Slinger (Delio)

This also links to Webster’s source for the play, anEnglish version of an Italian account by MatteoBandello. Bandello called himself ‘Delio’ and isthought by some to have been a friend of theoriginal Antonio. It is Delio who in this productionframes the action.

The openingAt the start of the performance, Delio crosses thestage and looks at the other central characters ofthe play spotlit behind him. By the end of the play,all of them will be dead. The effectiveness of sucha sequence demands detailed collaboration.

Some of the sounds that Simon [Baker, SoundDesigner] and I used in our initial explorationsinto the mad scene have found their way intothe music. When the iron [safety curtain] goesout at the top of the show, the bass plays itslow E flat, immediately followed by twounearthly sounds, one low, one high, before theglass screen starts its move across the stage tothe accompaniment of flute and trumpetchords. Both Simon and I thought it wasimportant to blend the instruments in withthose kinds of sounds – part of creating the

atmosphere of The Dead that must be set up atthe beginning.Gary Yershon

The ‘Mad’ SceneThe play was criticised for many years as beinggratuitously horrific. This opinion shifted throughthe twentieth century, amid debates about theextent of human cruelty, particularly in war. Thisproduction did not want the horrors of Act Four tobe simply a ghoulish pageant, from which theaudience remains detached.

Her suffering in Act Four we take part in. Weexperience the horror that she’s subjected to,the shock of what she sees.Phyllida Lloyd

From a very early stage Phyllida imagined thisscene as involving some kind of aural assault ofthe Duchess.Gary Yershon

The episode when Ferdinand makes the ‘madpeople’ perform to the Duchess as part of hertorture is, in this production, a sequence involvingthe entire company of actors and musicians, thewhole stage space, movement, music, sound,lighting and video.

Initially we worked on the soundtrack to themadness video together – [Simon Baker] cameup with a draft of his sounds ideas, I came upwith mine. What is heard now is something ofan amalgamation, but hugely refined by hisdetailed work editing soundtrack to picture. Ithink his final edit is absolutely brilliant. As iswhat Michael Keegan Dolan [Director ofMovement], working with the actors, came upas a backing for the video. To me Act Four iseveryone at their very, very best – the actors,Terry King [Fight Director], all of us.Gary Yershon

The deathsI do account this world a tedious theatre,For I do play a part in’t ‘gainst my will.The Duchess (Act Four)

This metaphor of life as a stage is continued at theend of Act Four when the Duchess rises and‘escapes to the steps behind her which representdeath’ (Phyllida Lloyd).

The play

Will Keen and Janet McTeer

photo Ivan Kyncl

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There are famously a lot of deaths in the play andrehearsals explored the best way to enact these.

There were two areas of interest. First, the deathof the Duchess and the superficial assumptionthat she goes to her death without fear. We feltin the end that of course she’s afraid, but herfaith and her imagination give her the strengthto endure it.

Webster gives you two remarkable death scenes– the Duchess then Cariola. One istranscendence and grace and poetry. The other,in which Cariola dies in complete terror, couldbe out of an Edward Bond play in its starkjagged rhythms.

Then there’s a second section when the corpsesstart piling up. Each person who dies gives ashort valedictory speech – some shorter thanothers. And I was exercised by how to avoid a‘cowboys grimacing in the gutter’ bloodbath –people groaning out these lines with their lastbreath and the audience not reallyunderstanding what they are saying.Phyllida Lloyd

One thing we did do in rehearsal is have all thedead bodies on stage – it turns out ridiculous –a heap of flesh.Lorcan Cranitch (Bosola)

We asked the actors to send their souls up tothe upper levels of the stage and leave theirbody behind. That was the beginning of thedevelopment of our more formalised approach

to the deaths in Act Five. It was something to dowith death as a release – into oblivion perhaps,but a release nevertheless.Phyllida Lloyd

During rehearsals Phyllida experimented withthe way the actors did their death speeches. Tomark the moment when they actually died, Iplayed a little two-note tolling figure on thepiano. I then thought it would be interesting totransfer this to guitar, hitherto not used in theproduction. I asked Michael Bernardine to playit. Everyone thought it effective. So there it is inthe show.Gary Yershon

The languageIt was the poetry as much as the drama thatexcited me at school. The couplets stuck ineverybody’s mind, even if we were not quitesure what they meant: ‘Whether we fall byambition, blood, or lust, / Like diamonds we arecut with our own dust’. (Ferdinand, Act Five)Phyllida Lloyd

When it came to directing the play, however,poetry for its own sake was not going to beenough.

The priority is to close the gap betweenthemselves [the actors] and the language to thepoint where it feels they are making it up asthey go along – that they are able to behavewith the freedom, fluidity or formality that theymight in any given situation. They must expressthemselves through the text and not in parallelwith it. It’s like a musical score – you can’t halfblow the trumpet, you have to play the wholenote.

Blank verse is close to the rhythm of speech –Webster uses it in quite a freestyle way – it’s notregularly ten beats to the line – like jazz there’squite a lot of variations on that.Phyllida Lloyd

Compared to Shakespeare the rhythms aremuch more syncopated, the language itself isclearer, more visceral. I get a lot of delight outof saying a lot of it.Jonathan Slinger

‘I’ll go hunt the badger, by owl-light: / ‘Tis adeed of darkness’ (Ferdinand, Act Four) – that’s

The play

Janet McTeer and Ray Stevenson

photo Ivan Kyncl

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got to be one of the best exit lines ever.Phyllida Lloyd

The first weeks of rehearsal were spent in closeattention to every moment of the text.

It became evident early on how thorough wewere going to be – sometimes people don’tspend enough time working out what they’regoing to say to each other.Lorcan Cranitch

It’s very easy to skim – you kind of get a gist ofwhat a section means. But you can’t say a line ifyou don’t know what it means – that’s whenyour voice goes on to that octave of ‘classicaltext speaking’ and at that moment the audienceis totally lost.Jonathan Slinger

I don’t want ever to say anything which I don’tunderstand. I don’t think in life one ever uses anexample without a good reason. In verse playsthere are often two examples a line. I thinkthey’re very realistic fragments of thought –three second bits of thought.

It’s written in an extraordinary and heightenedway. You have to believe in the charactershaving that interest in language. If you’re saying‘Or dip the sheets they lie in, in pitch or sulphur’[Act Three] it’s an improvement in his mind: ‘inpitch or – no, better – sulphur’ It’s not just usinglanguage to express what he’s feeling – it’s usinglanguage to create what he’s feeling.Will Keen (Ferdinand)

‘Closing the gap’ between the actor and thelanguage takes different forms. Lorcan Cranitchdiscussed the potential in using his own Irish accentfor Bosola.

It’s a tricky one, because he does a lot of killing– I didn’t want to go down that route, But thefact that he’s an outsider in this world –

I’m trying to use a natural music in the deliveryof the lines. He uses the word ‘sure’ – ‘Sure hewas too honest’. [Act Three] There’s somethingdifferent in the Jacobean ‘sure’ and the Irish‘sure’ but they’re both emphatic.Lorcan Cranitch

Finding a through lineAnother challenge for many of the actors wasfinding a ‘through line’ for their characters – whatis it that links their actions in the play frombeginning to end? It was important for them toexplore why the characters in the play do whatthey do, especially since the answers are rarelyclear cut.

There’s an ambiguity about [the Duchess’]motives. The ambiguity of the first thing shedoes in the play is rich and exciting. Is she justmadly in love with Antonio? To what extent isshe in rebellion against a political and sexualregime, and so possessed with a desire to defy itthat to some extent she just picks the nearestman?Phyllida Lloyd

We’ve become quite sophisticated in our abilityto follow the truth of someone’s motivation.The question ‘Why?’ comes up a lot, especiallywith Bosola.

I’ve tried to keep it as simple andstraightforward as through line in what isactually a bizarre journey. I think he changes. Ithink he reluctantly takes the job, does it to thebest of his ability, then it all goes wrong andblows up in his face – and then eventually theremorse he feels for where he’s landed. He’s ahighly intelligent man but he does some reallystupid things.Lorcan Cranitch

When I said yes to the part everyone said, it’simpossible – all you’ll be doing is crawlingaround and howling.

The play

Janet McTeer and Will Keen

photo Ivan Kyncl

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As an actor you have to think of him [Ferdinand]as becoming sane at the end – it’s about grief. Ithink he finds all these people in himself – he’skilling them in him. He has to avenge her. I thinkhe’s much madder before. Act Four is the realmadness.

The difficult decision for me is at what point[Ferdinand] discovers he is in love with her andat what point the audience discovers. They areprobably different – I haven’t even decidedwhat the order is. I’m not sure he properlyknows until he sees her corpse. That speech, themoment with the body – that is the completepivot.Will Keen

Delio is widely thought of as just a ‘best friend’– his only action throughout the play is to helpand support Antonio. I don’t believe that that’sever somebody’s sole intention over the span ofa play like this.

I started with the idea that he is in love withAntonio – but I felt that’s been done, I wantedto find a motive that was more – that wasmotivated by self-interest. I played around withhis being actually as dark as the brothers – it’sall duplicity. That was going against the text toomuch. Then we came up with the idea that he’sa journalist [see above] … It gave me somethingelse to play, it illuminated a lot of the scenes,made him more interesting, more believable.Jonathan Slinger

The play

Ray Stevenson

photo Ivan Kyncl

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Exploring the play practically1. Being watchedThe production explored the way the courtwatches everything the Duchess does. Read thebeginning of Act Three, up to the start of theconversation between Ferdinand and Bosola. Whichparts of this scene are in public and which inprivate?

Try performing the scene with everyone who is notspeaking in the scene playing one of the Duchess’court. Who is trying to hide what they are saying?Are there moments when a character (Ferdinand,for example) might involve the rest of the court inthe scene deliberately?

In rehearsal, we looked at points when the courtmight react to the events of the scene, for examplewhen Ferdinand says the name of the man he wantsthe Duchess to marry, or when the Duchessmentions ‘a scandalous report’ about herself. Whichreactions help to tell the story of the scene, andgive us a sense of the world in which the Duchesslives: applause, boos, cheers, gasps, silence? Trydifferent possibilities and see how the atmospherechanges.

2. CollaborationGary Yershon talks about the collaborationsbetween the different members of the artistic teamto create sequences in the production. Choose oneof the episodes from the play which interests you:the opening, the ‘mad’ scene, the Echo scene, forexample.

Divide responsibility for different aspects of thescene: music, other sound, movement, setting,costume, lighting – between different people orgroups of people. Read the episode together anddiscuss your responses to it. Come to an agreementabout what the most important aspects of thisepisode are for you. Then each person (or group)should go off and work on their aspect of thatepisode separately.

Come together again and present your ideas to therest of the group. Bring material – drawings,pictures, recordings etc. which help to give an ideaof your plans. Discuss how these different ideasmight work together. Be prepared to modify yourideas at this stage – you may get inspiration fromsomething one of the other collaborators has comeup with. Always keep a sense of what you agreedwas important about this episode.

Give yourselves a deadline and put your ideas intopractice, using whatever resources you haveavailable to stage this episode in line with yourideas. (You might decide to present it as a ‘modelbox’ for example, or use multimedia on acomputer.) See how effectively you can worktogether to make the expressive presentation ofthe episode.

3. ImprovisationPhyllida Lloyd describes how, in rehearsal: ‘Weasked the actors to send their souls up to theupper levels of the stage and leave their bodybehind.’

Read Act Five from the point Bosola overhears theCardinal plotting his death. Once you have an ideaof what is happening in this sequence, divide youracting area into two. Place chairs in one half for allthe characters who die in the scene. No-one elseshould enter this space.

Act out the end of Act Five in the other half of thespace (the one without the chairs). When acharacter dies, the actor playing that character

Practical exercises

Janet McTeer

photo Ivan Kyncl

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goes and sits in one of the chairs, although as far asthe other characters are concerned the bodyremains (invisibly) on stage.

Experiment with different timings for the deaths. Inthis production the deaths happen before thecharacters’ final words, so there is a differencebetween how they speak when fatally woundedand when they become a sort of ghost.

See if you can give each of the deaths the respectit deserves, preventing the scene becoming simplya pile-up of corpses.

4. The languageThe actors talk about the importance ofunderstanding every word and image that theyspeak. Have a look at Bosola’s speech in Act Twowhich starts: ‘What thing is in this outward form ofman / To be beloved?’

With a partner, read the speech through to eachother and highlight everything you are sure youunderstand first time. (Don’t worry if there isn’tmuch!) Go through it again and see if there are anywords you don’t understand. Your edition of theplay may have notes which help, but you’ll probablyneed a dictionary as well. Once you haveunderstood the words, go back and see if any moreof the speech makes sense. Keep saying the lines,observing where the punctuation comes, until eachphrase makes sense to you. You may need to askfor help with some of the more difficult lines, butsee how much you can work out on your own.

Once you have understood all the details in thespeech, talk about why you think Bosola is saying it.What is he trying to communicate to the audiencethrough this speech? Why does he want to do that?

Listen to each other speaking the speech in thelight of all the discoveries you have made. Point outmoments when you really understand what eachother are saying. Be strict about the points whenthe speech still doesn’t make any sense.

Once you are sure that you understand everythingin the speech, try performing it to a larger group.See what they feel and understand from the speechand use that to improve your performance.

Practical exercises

Sally Rogers, Lorcan Cranitch,Janet McTeer

photo Ivan Kyncl

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1. The play and our worldThe Duchess of Malfi is set in a world of politicalintrigue, religious intolerance, exile and search forasylum, imprisonment without trial, torture, murderand revenge. What connections could you makebetween those things in the play and in the worldyou live in?

2. The DuchessIn the moment of disobeying her brothers andremarrying (remarrying a social inferior toemphasise the contrast between ‘lust’ and‘duty’) the Duchess of Malfi asserts her sexualself … From the moment of her assertion ofsexual independence, the Duchess moves withdignity but inexorably towards a ritualchastisement worthy of a flagrant breach ofpublic order’Lisa Jardine, Still Harping on Daughters

What are the differences or similarities betweenthe powers and freedoms women have in the worldof the play and in your world?

What ‘private’ behaviour by a public figure wouldnow lead to the kind of punishment inflicted onthe Duchess?

3. The end of the playLet us make noble use Of this great ruin, and join all our forceTo establish this young hopeful gentlemanIn’s mother’s right.Delio (Act Five)

What is the effect of the final sequence, whenDelio brings in the Duchess’ son? Is it hopeful?Sinister? What about Antonio’s dying words? Howwould you choose to present the end of the play?

For discussion

Eleanor David and

Ray Stevenson

photo Ivan Kyncl

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BooksMuriel C Bradbrook John Webster: Citizen andDramatist

Bertolt Brecht Collected Plays Volume 7 (includesan adaptation of The Duchess of Malfi)

E K Chambers The Elizabethan Stage

Lisa Jardine Still Harping on Daughters

John Webster The White Devil

FilmFrancis Ford Coppola The Godfather

Luchino Visconti The Leopard

ProductionsMamma Mia (Prince Edward Theatre, London)directed by Phyllida Loyd, designed by MarkThompson

The Handmaid’s Tale (English National Opera,London, April/May 2003) directed by PhyllidaLloyd

WebsitesThe following Google directory links to a numberof Duchess of Malfi sites:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Literature/World_Literature/British/16th_Century/Webster,_John/Works/The_Duchess_of_Malfi

Charles Edwards and

Janet McTeer

photo Ivan Kyncl

Other resources


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