It should not be possible for The Revenger’s Tragedy at The National Theatre to be as good as it is. Five full acts of fornication, fratricide, incest, rape and revenge in a court full of bastard sons, step brothers, disappointed lovers, adulterous mothers and murderers in disguise should only occur in an Albert Square Christmas special.
Thomas Middleton’s 1606 play is the epitome of Jacobean tragedy; King Lear is a family squabble in comparison and Macbeth a comedy of manners. There is barely enough room on the vast Olivier stage for the few unkilled characters, so high is the body count at the end.
It is hard to know where to begin to praise this production. Director and co-designer Melly Still’s modern dress masterpiece is set in a beautifully corrupt world of deviance and decadence to the beat of a fantastic live performance by DJs differentGear: it is worth the ticket price just for the opening sequence. At no point does the highly improbable plot pose problems for the ensemble cast who handle the verse with verve and panache.
Rory Kinnear excels as Vindice, the eponymous hero whose mission it is to revenge the poisoning of his faithful fiancée by the lustful Duke. Vindice and his brother Hippolito (Jamie Parker) get somewhat sidetracked along the way to achieving their goal in the midst of the complex subplots that make the play so intriguing. Strong characterisations and clever costuming throughout make it easy for the audience to follow their bloody trail. Elliot Cowan comes very close to stealing the show as the Duke’s heir Lussurioso while Tom Andrews and John Heffernan bring out all the macabre comedy of his scheming stepbrothers Ambitioso and Supervacuo.
The first half whirls by on pure adrenaline and, even if the pace is a little more stately after the interval , the show feels short at 2 hours and 40 minutes. If only there was an omnibus edition.
