Exposition comes fast and furious as this Duchess opens, so if ever a production needed to get it out clean and clear, this is the occasion. Instead, the director claims "to bring a fresh and very exciting eye to the play." Indeed, the contemporary of The Duchess of Malfi setting is so startling to look at, it distracts us from the dialogue revealing who's who and what's what. The whole gang of mainly jeans-clad actors fills a long, lemon-walled rectangle with its lime carpet, one rear and one side door. Retro side chairs and a blonde-wood couch, table with tiny lamp, a TV are on the opposite side from a stuffed chair, an organ, and second TV. The latter lets us see roguish Bosola (dynamic Jason Peck) making cynical and socially critical remarks to secondary court people while he sits with his back turned to us.
Videoing, Kevin O'Callaghan establishes Delio as a syncophant, as well as the actor who'll be chief camera man and imparter of mod music, plus textual speeches and poetry by mic. (Let's note that the only artistic and, indeed, justified use of video is of a later backstage scene; of Polaroid snap, by Cariola, the Duchess' servant, witnessing her liason with Antonio.) In fact, uses of electronics -- unlike, say, the TVs that brought us into smutty suburban scenes in London's National Theatre Measure for Measure or the Theatre de Jeune Lune's videoing of operatic scenes within the straight Barber of Seville play -- are few enough to make us suspect that here they're just another sad attempt to modernize. (The worst is costuming the Duchess as if in an old Brooke Shields ad, hardly distinguishable from her denim-dressed lover and court. Mod clothing also deprives conservatory actors of learning how to handle Jacobean dress.)
What's left of John Webster's characterization of the Duchess is Elizabeth Ahrens' sensuousness in private yet public assertion of her dignity. Certainly her surroundings here hint nothing of the title and wealth her brothers crave taking from her. The unholy Cardinal (so slyly rendered by David Yearta that only a cross on his neck chain bespeaks his religion) and Ferdinand conspire to expose her secret marriage and, by her moving to indulge her passion, shirking her duty to rule. Half-crazy Ferdinand harbors incestuous desires as well.
DeMario McGrew -- a tall, strong, articulate black man supposed to be the pale, slim Ahrens' Duchess' twin!-- is made actually to lick her face. (Another literalization that turns farcical is a parade of characters in wolf masks, since the wolves are hard to distinguish from porkers.) In horror-movie manner, McGrew's Ferdinand mostly creeps about or orders Bosola to spy on the Duchess. At least he's more lively than Dolph Paulsen, cute but cardboard-stiff as the low-caste Antonio, save for a playful bourdoir scene. If the actors share any saving grace, it's their having been taught to appear somewhat at ease with Webster's dense language.
Imagery of light and dark is stressed in scenes played in total darkness or lit by the tiny table lamp or harsh overheads. Needlessly graphic, considering the text calls for the Duchess to contemplate her casket, is locking her in a centrally placed cage. (Shades of Marlowe!) More effectively, strangling her down center in contrast to the dispatching of her lying, protesting servant Cariola (effective Heather Kelley) against a back wall plays up the Duchess' regal acceptance of her fate. The Duchess' brief revival also contrasts with the death of the Cardinal's mistress Julia (Michelle Trachtenberg, directed like an afterthought), when he no longer needs her.
For whatever reason, this version eliminates Julia's cuckolded husband, yet Brent Bateman and Steve O'Brien prove up to fulfilling a number of other courtly and killing duties. Finally, a young man who's probably the Assistant Stage Manager stands to the side and lets off a gun whenever characters mime shots, filling the stage with bodies. The whole mess seems to contradict, though it's probably meant to be ironic, the legend over the set: "There is no such thing as Evil." Director Gellert's note quotes Augustine to the effect that evil has no substance but gradually removes good until none remains. This last certainly applies to what this production does to Webster's text.
