The Duchess (Of Malif), Trafalgar Theatre Review

Reviewed by Chelsea for Theatre and Tonic

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review. Please note this review was written during the previews. 

Content warnings: sexual scenes with some including sexual violence, and flashing lights.

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Being advertised as Jodie Whittaker’s return to the stage, The Duchess [of Malfi] seems an odd theatre comeback for such a beloved actress.

The Duchess [of Malfi] is a contemporary take on the original play by John Webster. Following the same plot structure, the recently widowed Duchess falls in love with someone who is below her status. Her brothers, outraged by the thought of her remarrying and potentially damaging their public and financial standing, start to spy on her. When they discover that she has had two children by her steward in secret, they lose all senses, lock her away and try to torture her into submission. However, she won’t succumb and thus comes her untimely death. Once the Steward learns of her murder, he comes to enact his revenge and the play ends in a bloodbath.

The original Duchess of Malfi is a beloved text and gets revived quite often. In fact, it was performed at The Globe earlier this year, but I feel this production misses the mark. Zinnie Harris’ adaptation tells you exactly what is happening while it happens. There is no room for the audience to imagine and the text loses its lyricism. It is being marketed as “exploring the depths of the patriarchy against female resistance”, but the play is dominated by the men, and we hardly get to see the resistance at all. We mostly hear about it through men speaking to each other.

There are also lots of elements within the play that don’t necessarily work together. Large projections appear of characters’ names, but not always when you are first introduced to them, so it feels random. The set and torture scene in particular feel like they were trying to recreate an episode of Black Mirror. Four songs seemingly come out of nowhere and don’t further the plot other than to bring the dead women's spirits to life. The use of microphones throughout the end of Act Two was reminiscent of a GCSE drama production. It felt as though too many different voices came together and couldn’t agree on what the play was.

All of this chaos was reflected in the audience’s reactions as people laughed in serious moments and left the theatre loudly talking about how uncomfortable they felt for the actors. Jodie Whittaker plays the Duchess with beautiful ease, but with the amount of time she’s actually on stage, even she can’t overshadow the issues within the production.

Overall the show felt very clunky and as if they were still in the workshop phase. Hopefully, since this performance was early in the run, they will be able to make some much needed changes by press night.

At Trafalgar Theatre until 20 Dec 2024.

★ ★