In his influential work, A History of Madness in Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Michel Foucault describes the transition from an early modern perception of madness to a new understanding of madness emerging in the seventeenth-century with the Age of Reason. However, while madness remains consistently intriguing throughout the centuries, the reason why it is fascinating changes, as do the ways in which it is perceived and understood.

Even today, such as 'A Beautiful Mind' use a romanticized combination of genius and insanity to draw crowds. From the wild speeches of King Lear and the guilt-sickened cries of Lady MacBeth, to the hordes of Londoners who visited Bedlam each year to see its inhabitants, madness's allure has been enduring. And it is an accomplishment that the love story between the duchess and Antonio (Khalid Abdalla) is not overshadowed by the melancholic or macabre courtship and family scenes contain both ardour and innocence.īest of all is Wilson as the delicate yet steely duchess her performance is one of riveting and charismatic perfection.Īt the Almeida, London, until 25 January.Madness has always fascinated audiences this is one of the few facts about madness upon which literary critics agree. The edited script has a fast, fluid clarity that magnifies Webster’s poetry. The female line is given new life by the inheritor of the family fortune, who here is the duchess’s daughter, not the son of Webster’s original. They do not disappear after their deaths but loom on stage, the duchess a particularly potent force who haunts her oppressors. Frecknall reassigns power to all three murdered women in the play (including the lady-in-waiting, Cariola, played by Ioanna Kimbook, and the Cardinal’s poisoned mistress, Julia, played by Shalini Peiris). Other aspects are magnificent: Leo Bill is a brutish Bosola and compelling in his rage and guilt. The final frenzy of murderous violence is played in slow motion to Dido’s Lament and verges on cliche, however beautifully it is enacted. The duchess is the only one barefoot in the first half and, as regal as she seems, this gives her a sense of vulnerability.īut the spare and intimate power of the production is undercut by the glut of theatrical technique, from actors performing in slow motion and speaking through microphones to the chapter headings daubed against the back wall.

Some symbolism works brilliantly: the blood shed here is black not red, suggesting a court so corrupt that it has perverted nature.

Author of the duchess of malfi