Young artists might find it easy to visualize John Webster's lurid 17th-century thrillers in present-day settings, but the task is not as easy as it first appears. Though our universe is not without its share of sensationalistic horrors in lofty social circles, we have learned a few things since The Duchess Of Malfi and The White Devil exposed the hypocrisy and greed rampant in unsettled times. Three hundred-odd years of enlightenment have instituted measures designed to restrict the abuses of power that fuel Webster's bloody intrigues. Imprisoning one's widowed sister in a mental hospital, or hiring an assassin to dispatch witnesses, nowadays carry a far greater risk of protest, detection and retribution.
Modern audiences having become acclimated to low-budget productions of the classics, the period-inspecific iconography utilized by Shakespeare's Motley Crew for their production of Malfi only slightly impairs our orientation to 1614 Italy. The employment of television monitors and sound stages to establish Devil's upper-level political milieu, however, paint such a contemporary picture that we find ourselves puzzling at the naivety of characters who meekly submit to outrageous mistreatment or blunder guilelessly to their deaths.
But plausibility is not what spurs action involving such exotic toys as a poisoned Bible which victims are enjoined to kiss. Under the deft guidance of Jeremy Wechsler, the SMC cast lavishes pathos, poignancy and personality on their shallow roles -- in particular, leading-lady Laura Jones Macknin as the doomed Duchess, ingenues Ann Noble Massey as the feisty Vittoria and Laura Scott Wade as the haughty Isabella, while juveniles William Sidney Parker and Christian Gray acquit themselves capably as twin mercenaries Bosola and Antonio, and company villain Don Bender does his reliable weasely turn.
A likewise hard-working non-Equity ensemble assists in elevating the dramatic question beyond "Who's gonna drop next?", but a little more of the tongue-in-cheek tone exhibited in the playbill's plot synopses might have made for some nice, shivery, cartoon-with-people fun.
