The Spanish Tragedy

Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy is a product of its time – socio-political, full of double-entendre, the themes of revenge and retribution and scenes of killing all the more poignant on stage against the backdrop of contemporary religious conflict and persecution, public hangings and brutal executions. It is a complex story, replete with sub-plots, two plays-within-plays and more murders, suicides and self-mutilations than many Greek tragedies, not to mention some extreme political machinations. All this is contained within an outer frame story, innovative in its time, and seen as the inspiration for the ghost in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. At the start of the play, the personification of Revenge meets the ghost of the Spanish officer Don Andrea, who was all set to marry the King’s niece, Bel-imperia, but was killed by the Portuguese Prince Balthazar before he was captured by the Spanish. Revenge surprisingly reveals the dénoument, promising that Don Andrea’s ghost will see justice done. The play unfolds, with Revenge appearing at key moments to twist and turn the plot towards a bloody and gripping end. On the way, the play covers Bel-imperia’s fickle fixation on Horatio, the young Spanish officer who was her dead fiancé’s best friend, who brings her news of his death. He is killed for political reasons, to make way for an marital alliance between Spain and Portugal so Bel-imperia can marry Prince Balthazar, who killed her fiancé. Bel-imperia tries to resist, but after being imprisoned by her brother, she pretends to go along with it and ends up avenging both the death of Don Andrea and Horatio. Sub-plots cover (a) the political machinations of Bel-imperia’s brother, Don Lorenzo, aided by his servant Pendringano, and (b) Horatio’s father, Hieronimo’s quest for justice. This sub-plot impels the latter half of the play along, from the moment Hieronimo discovers his son’s death. During the performance, two plays-within-plays are performed at the court, which challenge directors in their deliberate bivalence and obscure symbolism. With the contemporary relevance of them fading, in this production which does not pretend to be informed by historical accuracy (fair enough), they merely provide a light and welcome respite contrasting comedy with brutality to heighten the drama. In this production, Helen Goddard’s set design and Emma Chapman’s stark, highly-effective lighting both work together to create space within space, beautifully bringing to life the internal and external stages on which the drama is played out.The sound effects and use of sound within the production are worthy of a special mention. They work to underscore the drama at key moments in an electrifying way. While they sometimes substitute for the intensity of the dramatic exchanges on stage in the early part, they increasingly support them as the play develops. Other aspects are less successful. Unbalanced casting by Janine Snape and lack of attention to detail in terms of direction from Director Mitchell Moreno results in some actors being able to make Kyd’s blank verse come alive, others making it sound like the shipping forecast. The more experienced actors deal most ably with the text, but even then, at times miss opportunities to use rhythm to highlight meaning – at least in the performance I attended. The choice to stage it in contemporary costumes works, but the use of props is ill-thought-through and the timeframe woolly to say the least. This is not a production for purists. The original text is more brutally cut in this production than any of the violent acts depicted on stage, with seemingly arbitrary choices made and opportunities to include some of the most poignant lines from the additional text supposedly supplied by Ben Jonson swept away. If you’re going to tamper with the original text and use modern costume, why retain words like ‘taper’ when the actor is clearly holding a torch? Why Revenge has to be dressed as the 1930s children’s character ‘Amerliaranne’ – or at least a figure of childlike innocence delighting in arbitrary violence – and the ghost as a would-be 1970s ‘Action Man’, I don’t know. I just didn’t get it. Perhaps I was trying to read too much into it – but some would argue that that’s exactly what Elizabethan theatre is all about. The play is definitely worth attending, if only to witness Dominic Rowan’s performance as Hieronimo, the touching scene between him and Richard Clews’ Bazulto, Hieronimo’s utterly convincing suicide and the visually and theatrically stunning end which makes good use of the loading bay with its menacingly slow electrically-operated creaking metal door and the alley layout of the Arcola theatre.