Women Beware Women by Thomas Middleton is a blood-soaked Jacobean revenge tragedy with a neatly dovetailed double plot in which two teenage brides fall victim to the conspiracy of a third, much older woman, only to conspire in their turn. Marianne Elliott takes the high-risk strategy of setting the play in modern dress, with costumes owing much to 1950s Italy and the louche world of La Dolce Vita. But as the play develops, it bursts out of its realistic framework and builds up to a balletic climax in which the Olivier theatre's revolve spins round to a frenetic jazz score as the bodies pile up. Rupert Goold is the only other director I can think of who can bring off this kind of coup. With black-winged angels of death hovering around the stage it's heart-stoppingly, breathtakingly theatrical, teetering on the brink of going over the top but stopping just short. It works (at least it does for me) because, like Trevor Nunn, Elliott has the confidence to use music, movement, lighting, dance and a striking two-level set while still putting the text at the centre of the show. The outcome is far superior to the National's last revival of a Middleton play, The Revenger's Tragedy in 2008.
One of the reasons this revival is so scintillating is the performance of Harriet Walter as the evil Livia, whose plotting and conspiracy drives the action. For an actress who has triumphed as Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth (not to mention Beatrice), Livia is a monster with no redeeming qualities, but Walter plays her with just the right mixture of cunning and plausibility. This is the first time I have seen her playing a woman older than her real age, and it's a revelation. Livia appears first as a stately black-clad widow, only to bare her shoulders after the interval to seduce the hapless cuckold Leantio, a piece of shameless manipulation that triggers all kinds of Jacobethan murder and mayhem. Samuel Barnett, the original Posner in the National's History Boys, is excellent as Leantio. There are also standout performances from two young actresses, Lauren O'Neil as Bianca and Vanessa Kirby as Isabella. The Olivier's giant stage and auditorium is often a daunting environment in which relative beginners have to sink or swim. O'Neil has a fluent, resonant voice and a commanding presence which reminds me of Rosamund Pike, while Vanessa Kirby, who was swotting for her finals at Exeter University this time last year, makes her mark with a virtuoso jazz vocal. The stunning set by Lez Brotherston is rather like a Russian oligarch's boudoir. In many modern-dress revivals of classic plays from the 16th and 17th centuries, the switch of period means that the differences of rank and status get blurred, but not here. It's easy to understand the huge gap between Leantio and his mother at the lower end of the social scale, and the blingy world of the Duke and his court.
I saw this play at a sold-out early preview, and it will probably get even better. It may be early to start speculating about 2010 theatrical awards, but I can see this production being in the running for several. I have no idea who may be in the running to follow Nicholas Hytner when he eventually steps down as head of the National Theatre, but I think Marianne Elliott is bound to be on the shortlist. I have no idea if she even wants the job, but after a phenomenal string of hit productions on the South Bank (Therese Raquin, Pillars of the Community, Saint Joan, All's Well That Ends Well and War Horse), her stock is likely to rise even higher with her latest offering.
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