The Revenger's Tragedy: National Theatre

A terrific production of one of the most complicated (not to say downright daft) Jacobean revenge tragedies. What starts out as a simple quest for revenge against one man soon spirals into an intricate web of plot and counter-plot with almost every character trying to kill someone else. The revolving stage, with it's hidden passageways, aptly conveys the corruption at court while allowing several bits of action to be glimpsed in rapid succession, and the modern dress doesn't detract from the power of the play at all. Vindice and his brother set about ensnaring the Duke in revenge for the poisoning of the former's fiancee 9 years ago. Vindice, in an echo of Hamlet, talks to his beloved's skull but more ingeniously uses it as the means to kill his enemy. Meanwhile, in disguise at court, his machinations become entangled with the various maneouvrings of the Duke and Duchess's children, resulting in yet more bloodshed. By the end, revenge has turned into a palace coup with the final irony being Vindice's boasting wrecking the perfect murder(s). Far from being grateful, the new Duke orders yet more deaths. This is a world where justice is thoroughly compromised and men must act for themselves, thus sowing the seeds of their own destruction. A bleak, and blackly comic, view of the times.