Review: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (Red Bull)

’Tis Pity She's a Whore

playwright  John Ford

company  Red Bull

theater  The Duke on 42nd Street

players

Matthew Amendt, Kelley Curran, Clifton Duncan, Ryan Farley, Ryan Garbayo, Philip Goodwin, Christopher Innvar, Amelia Pedlow, Everett Quinton, Rocco Sisto, Derek Smith, Franchelle Stewart Dorn, Auden Thornton, Tramell Tillman, Marc Vietor

director  Jesse Berger

set  David M. Barber

costumes  Sara Jean Tosetti

lights  Peter West

sound  John D. Ivy

music  Adam Wernick

Amelia Pedlow & Matthew Amendt
in Red Bull's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore

Although the tightly-knit companies I’ve covered recently have produced inventive work, they also have a major shortcoming. Both Fiasco’s 2 Gents and Bedlam’s 12th Night were comprised entirely of white actors. I passed on the Wooster Group's Troilus and Cressida (AKA Cry, Trojans!) partly because of its racial politics (the Trojans were American Indians, the actors were white; and that's only the tip of the controversy). Meanwhile the Broadway shows in the Shake-sphere’s orbit, Wolf Hall and Something Rotten, have one black man and one black woman between them.

This is not okay. The plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries are especially suited to diversity in casting. They are rooted in poetry, theatricality, and fantastical plots; there’s almost nothing ‘realistic’ about them, and plenty that’s artificial. Except in cases where race is specifically a theme (e.g. Othello), Shak offers his producers the chance to make their troupe into a utopia of post-racial opportunity.

So Red Bull gets points simply for diversity in casting their ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. One main role and two supporting roles go to black actors. Their melanin content in no way interferes with John Ford’s vision of an ultra-decadent Renaissance Italy, and their talent abets Jesse Berger’s vision of noble depravity.

’Tis Pity is one of the era’s masterpieces unjustly eclipsed by Shakespeare’s reputation—much better than Titus A. or Richard 3. But then the tragedy itself lives in Shak’s shadow. The conventional description of Tis Pity is “What if Romeo and Juliet were siblings?” Ford deliberately nods to R&J by giving the brother a priest and the sister a nurse as confidantes. He revisits the earlier play’s clash between passion and propriety, but from the complex, equivocal viewpoints of Hamlet and Lear. The play climaxes not with a suicide pact but with a murder/suicide.

On the page and in most productions, the brother is the focus of the action. But Berger’s cuts and direction shift focus subtly to the sister, played with great intelligence by Amelia Pedlow. She shows the self-possession of a good Shakespearean ingénue: feminine and smart, alternately frisky and haughty as the situation demands. Her character can seem like a victim, hemmed in by men’s decisions—father, brother, suitors, husband—but Pedlow gives her loss of autonomy a tragic dignity. In that way, she and Berger give the climactic murder/suicide a proto-feminist slant.

Matthew Amendt portrays her fraternal/romantic stage-partner as a bookish man strung out by his Freudian impulses. He tears into the Marlovian audacity of a character made almost drunk by his defiance of convention. The company as a whole gives broad and lusty performances; their pleasure in such lurid plots and colorful characters drives much of the show’s first half. Indeed, as Ford closes off his subplots to focus on the siblings’ mental agitation, the show loses some of its gaudy thrill. Much of the pleasure from this Whore derives from the broad characterizations, pitched to match a play whose bloody finale has the protagonist stabbing his brother-in-law with a dagger already impaled with his sister’s heart!

Ford and Berger’s ’Tis Pity is a work of aesthetic overload, epitomized by Sara Jean Tosetti’s phenomenal costumes. Take the outfit of the stock idiot fop character: his too-wide ruff, a leopard-print women’s jacket, and clunky black’n’gold heels are fabulously glam while borrowing enough from Jacobean fashion to make the setting specific.

Berger, with his brave cast and savvy designers, exploits the potential latent in Ford’s tragedy. He and Scenic designer David Barbour provide half a dozen entrances to the stage, including a balcony for the heroine. This feature helps him keep the pace quick without tangling the subplots. In fact, this staging is more clear and engaging than many simpler dramas. The interlocking plots move like clockwork. The playing is conversational, emphasizing dialogue and clarity over verse. That’s a smart choice, since the play and production otherwise aim for maximalism. Incest and intrigue has never been so much fun!

Kelley Curran & Clifton Duncan
in Red Bull's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore

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Red Bull's ’Tis Pity She's a Whore runs Apr 14 thru May 16 at the Duke on 42nd Street.

photos: Richard Termine