Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy
Jul. 2nd, 2005 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oursinSaw a rare production of this Jacobean play at the White Bear pub theatre in Kennington. It has a lot of things in it: sexual cynicism, allusions to kinky sex (on waking up to find that his mistress has tied his hands, the King asks 'What pretty game is this?' - she's actually about to Avenge her Honour), woman disguising herself as man, extreme slashiness (I don't buy Melantius luvs Amyntor as merely about the Renaissance ideal of manly friendship), a comic Polonius figure, coarse jokes, one murder, three suicides, etc, etc.
Amyntor is the kind of character who makes one nod approvingly at Rebecca West's 'Men are terribly poor stuff'. He is a total waste of space. At the King's behest, he jilts Aspasia to marry Evadne, only to find on their wedding night that she has no intention of letting him consummate the marriage because she is shagging the King (the general moral tone of the court is suggested by her dry comment 'A maidenhead, at my years?'), though for ambition, not love. Extensive moaning and whingeing by Amyntor, who in spite of being exhorted by both Evadne and the King (and his line throughout is that Kings are Divine and must be obeyed and not killed, even if they're bonking the missus) to maintain utter discretion about their liaison, almost immediately romps le silence* to disclose all this to soldier from the wars returning Melantius, not only his bezzie mate but Evadne's elder brother. Evadne is then persuaded by Melantius to avenge the family honour, undergoes complete change of heart and begs Amyntor's forgiveness: he reconciles with her, smooch, smooch. He then rushes off intending to kill the King, upsetting Melantius's careful plans to that end, but Melantius soons persuades him out of this. Amyntor then readily accepts that Aspasia had a brother whom no-one had ever mentioned (actually Aspasia in drag), who forces a fight on him and commits suicide by running onto his knife. Enter Evadne, carrying a knife, having offed the King. Amyntor does shock, horror, etc, and Evadne kills herself. The not-quite dead Aspasia briefly revives, reveals her identity, Amyntor declares his true love for her, she dies. He kills himself. Enter Melantius (with various others), terribly upset, rushes to clasp the dying Amyntor even though his sister is lying dead on the ground. King's brother, now the King, makes sententious remarks about the dangers of lustfulness in monarchs.
Good production, though. I'm not sure that the 1920s setting did anything for it, but it didn't particularly work against it either.
*[As Florence King puts it in her hilarious account of Racine's Phedre]
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Date: 2005-07-03 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 07:53 am (UTC)I especially like extreme melodrama when it is set in the New World - like Orinooco or Tabare, or short stories by Juana Gorr1ti. Then, you get extra sentiment about noble savages, and the pure lovely maidens who are dying for a noble opportunity for suicide are all the more tragic for being half-indian and having to decide about loyalty to the (European) father or the dashing lover fighting for independence. There's lots of cross-dressing, sudden lost twins rediscovered, and unfair trial scenes. Everyone ends up dead by daggers or poison, with lovely dying speeches that go on forever until they swoon gently down into glamorous death. Like an opera where some chick who's been coughing up bits of lung for hours bursts into song right before she dies.
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Date: 2005-07-03 05:09 pm (UTC)I mean, that's so COOL.
I'm going to be happy all day, just because somebody's putting on a production of it.
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Date: 2005-07-04 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-06 12:04 am (UTC)