The Revenger's Tragedy Workshop - Blog - Amber Pursey

I came into the R&D with little experience of early modern plays, especially Thomas Middleton. So, I naturally had some nerves and anxieties about my ability to dissect text and truthfully convey my thoughts about Revenger’s and Middleton’s intentions.

However, throughout the 2 days I really started to gain more confidence and felt I discovered so much about the play and the period it was written in (big thanks to Sarah’s invaluable knowledge).

I found talking in an open forum, questioning everything, and throwing out thoughts about each scene/character, extremely helpful to humanise and create depth within the text. It expanded my mindset and nudged me to dig deeper and question things I may have not bothered to think about before.

With that in mind, if we took the exploration further, I would be intrigued to carry on investigating the effect of gender in the play, and how we can still connect to a modern audience despite the now progressed views on egalitarianism. There is a lot of derogative dialogue in the play, especially towards women. Although we questioned it, I believe there could be a deeper investigation into how to perform this language to a modern audience with meaningful and stimulating intentions, rather than forgiving it because of the era and world it was written in/for.

I would also love to experiment with the different physicality’s and potential movement in the play. How would a Masque look like? Could we explore Italian or Jacobean dancing? Could it be a form of communication throughout the show? I would like to see how it could affect the dialogue and relationships within the play.