‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore

October 9, 2011 by Leave a Comment

By John Ford. First published in 1633 (approximately 7-8 years after its first performance) by Nicholas Oakes for Richard Collins. Current edition published by Arden Shakespeare in 2011.

Sometimes I think that the current generation on the internet likes to believe that they were the ones who made incest cool, what with all the squee and the Ouran and Harry Potter fanfics out there. But incest has been around since pretty much the dawn of mankind, and has been written about in the greatest works of literature just as much. Almost every high schooler has to read Oedipus Rex these days, though I suspect their local church likely skips over all the Old Testament fooling around.

Thus, in terms of being a play about incest, John Ford was not breaking exciting new ground. The new ground was in how he dealt with it. This is not the usual wacky comedy uncle lusting after his sweet young niece as we’ve seen in other Jacobean plays, nor are the siblings royalty (incest is always more acceptable when they’re kings, strangely enough). No, we have a merchant family here, and their son, Giovanni, is no slavering neanderthal. Not for him the baseless lust approach. He is madly in love with his sister and so he tries to rationalize it intellectually, coming up with all sorts of arguments he can present to his local friar. The friar’s position can basically be summed up by this ellipsis: “…” Luckily for Giovanni, his sister Annabella has fallen madly for him as well, and they declare, then consummate their love in Act II.

The next three acts are everything going to hell, as you can imagine. This is a tragedy, and there will not be door slamming and talk of sardines here. A lot of modern productions of this play apparently want to focus purely on the main couple, and cut out a lot of the other stuff going on, which mostly involves Annabella’s many suitors and a whole lot of plotting of revenge. Which is a shame, as it helps to show that, despite what many critics have said over the years (usually in the process of condemning the play), Ford is *not* sympathizing with the leads. He does not regard their love as Romeo and Juliet, and the way the production plays out shows this. He does not, however, portray either Giovanni or Annabella as monsters. This is the difference.

Annabella actually shows remorse for her mistakes of passion, right about when she realizes that her troublesome suitor, Soranzo, actually does love her. She is also not the instigator of the relationship (which makes it harder to blame the evil woman seducing the poor innocent man, a common enough reasoning in this time period), and ends up having her heart gouged out of her by a now insane Giovanni. Nevertheless, while the play was very popular at the time it was first written and performed, it was condemned by critics for years afterwards, with the compilers of Ford’s Complete Works choosing to omit the play entirely rather than sully the book with this heathenism. It also was thought unsuitable for the stage and unperformed for about 250 years, only being revived consistently after 1940 or so.

This is not exactly a fun play to read, but I think it’s very well-written. And, as with Shakespeare, I think it’s a lot more ambiguous than usually ends up being presented on the stage in modern productions. Ford is not saying the incestuous lovers are right, but he is saying that they are human, and that we can understand their all too human failings. Thus the title, which aptly sums up those two dichotomies: ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore.

Filed Under: arden early modern drama, reviews

The Renegado

May 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment

By Philip Massinger. First published in 1630 (six years after its first performance) by John Waterson, bookseller. Current edition published by Arden Shakespeare in 2010.

So I’ve been reading a lot of Shakespeare lately. The Arden Shakespeare is a series that’s been around since the early 1900s, putting out critical editions of Shakespeare for scholars. These editions usually take years to compile, and each book has its own separate editor. The Second Editions came out from the 1950s to the 1980s, and the Third Editions are coming out from the mid-90s to the present. The third editions have done very well, and are about 2/3 through Shakespeare’s catalog. They’re updated for modern scholarship. For example, they can now discuss various homoerotic subtexts that were frowned upon in the old days. Likewise, we’re seeing the first Arden editions of plays like The Two Noble Kinsmen, and even plays-once-removed such as Double Falsehood (based off the lost Cardenio).

With this in mind, Arden has decided to expand its brief a bit and put out a separate line of ‘Early Modern Drama’, devoted to the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration plays that don’t get as much attention as a Shakespeare would. This began in the Fall of 2009 with 4 plays; The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster; an omnibus of Everyman and Mankind, two medieval morality plays, and Beaumont and Fletcher’s Philaster, one of the better known Tragicomedies. Now they’re also doing Massinger’s The Renegado, another tragicomedy, but one with a thrilling blend to draw in modern readers. Turks, harems, eunuchs, and pirates! No ninjas, alas.

The Renegado is a pretty decent play, especially considering all it’s trying to cram in. Like most plays of its period, it has 5 or 6 plots that all converge. And, despite my joking about the play’s modern sensibilities, it’s also very up to date for 1624, when it was first performed. Piracy was a big issue then, with the glamor of the pirate king gradually giving way to the reality that most of them were utter scoundrels and murderers. Likewise, Turkey was another common topic to write about, as they were a fresh new ‘other’ to vilify and be fascinated by. Sure, they’re heathen savages who will all burn, but damn, what impressive armies!

Most startling, though, are The Renegado’s views on religion. Not Islam, necessarily – Islam is still shown to be on the losing end of religious beliefs, and the nice Catholic girl gets to keep her chastity while the heathen Mahometian girl (as they were then known) is converted and betrays her people. No, the real surprise here is the way it treats Catholics. The play came at a time when King James was trying to marry his daughter off to a Catholic, and was thus trying to soften opinion. It wasn’t softening much. Parliament was still vehemently against the Jesuits.

It’s stunning, therefore, that not only does the play feature a sympathetic Jesuit priest (the presence of Jesuits itself is not stunning as the non-Turk cast are from Venice), but he manages to get Grimaldi, the turncoat pirate, to repent and regain his faith. There is even a baptism! I’m impressed that a copy of this play managed to survive. And yet apparently it was really not all that controversial in its time, or at least little controversy about it has survived.

The play’s not all melodrama, of course. You know it has a happy ending as it has the label ‘tragicomedy’, but for plays of this period, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s FUNNY. (Remember, Merchant of Venice is a comedy too.) Luckily, we have a wacky comedy servant, who gets some great lines, and the chief Eunuch, the one Englishman in the play, who amuses himself by trying to trick the servant into ‘gaining access’ to the harem. The servant does not know what a eunuch *is*, of course, leading to much wordplay. “All you need to do is part with a precious stone or two…”

I greatly enjoy these Arden critical editions, both Shakespeare and non. Not only are they lovingly footnoted, with text annotations and context, but they have long, historical introductions discussing the life of the author, the play, and the performance history. You’;re not just reading a play, you’re getting a history lesson. It’s only out in the UK at the moment, but Amazon’s US edition will be released in 2 weeks. If you’re only going to get one… well, get The Duchess of Malfi, which is stupendous. But this is great too.

Filed Under: arden early modern drama