by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley
seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 4 February 2015
The wonderful indoor playhouse associated with Shakespeare's Globe on Bankside continues its series of Jacobean plays with the tragedy of Beatrice-Joanna as she finds that her attempts to secure her passion for Anselmero trap her in a spiral of moral degradation.
As usual the intimate candle-lit space is used to stunning effect. In fact the play opens in darkness with the major characters appearing and carrying a candle each with a reflector that shines the light only onto a part of their faces, so that eyes, mouths and noses seem to be floating past each other, the gazes snared by the sudden proximity of another's visage. This is a great introduction to a play in which the sight of another person can inflame passions of attraction and revulsion, but also in which many people are fundamentally unknowable or not what they seem.
