The Revenger's Tragedy

This was the first time I'd seen The Revenger's Tragedy by Thomas Middleton (not by Cyril Tourneur as many published editions still proclaim).  Professor Gary Taylor ranks him with Shakespeare, and who am I to argue?  I had problems with this production by Melly Still, which I felt buried the text rather than illuminated it.  I felt nostalgic for Nicholas Hytner's wonderful modern dress production of Ben Jonson's The Alchemist which made every line of a very complex play accessible.  The Revenger's Tragedy is a young man's shocker, a bit like Titus Andronicus, with stabbings going on all over the place (very contemporary) and blood spurting out in all directions.  Lots of sex'n'violence, in fact.  Melly Still comes to theatre as a director/designer, and I felt a sense that bringing out the details of the text was secondary to her, and the visual and sound elements were paramount.  I didn't feel she really trusted the play enough to let it speak for itself.  The setting is extremely vivid -- a kind of Eurotrash/punk universe where some characters wear Armani suits and others slinky gold leather trousers.  That style fits okay around characters whose names include Ambitioso, Spurio, Supervacuo, Sordido and Lussurioso.  But I still have a problem with actors in modern dress wearing swords.  There aren't any duel scenes, so why not just stick to knives?  Amid all the sound and fury, Rory Kinnear plays the central role of Vindice, the young man sworn on revenge for the murder of his beloved Gloriana, with a jokiness and flippancy that made me wonder whether his range as an actor really extends beyond the comic.  He was excellent in The Man of Mode but I think his limitations show up in this play.  There's an interesting comparison to be drawn with David Tennant's Hamlet, which also found a lot of humour in the midst of tragedy.  I thought Tennant's performance (even though it didn't wring my withers) much better than Kinnear's.  Of course, there is a lot in The Revenger's Tragedy that is so OTT that it's hard to take entirely seriously, but I kept on wondering what a more subtle director such as Gregory Doran might have made of it.