DAY 1: What a fascinating day. So we’re all hands on deck this week working on Middleton’s “The Revenger’s Tragedy”, a tale of lusty revenge and enough bloodshed it would make Titus Andronicus shudder. We began with a discussion of our initial reactions to the play. For my part I was struck by the immediacy of the violence compared to other more brutal early modern dramas knocking around at a similar time. What became clear from the group was how upsettingly funny we had foun

On the first day working with the fantastic group of creatives on ‘The Revenger’s Tragedy’, we worked on the trying to figure out why Middleton was saying certain things and what was at the centre of his play. Why are these people behaving like this? What has happened to them and what is missing structurally from their society that has caused this animalistic environment? I found it really interesting working on a piece of early modern text that isn’t Shakespeare for the firs

I was assigned the Mother / Gratiana to look at and dig into. I was very pleased with this. Jacobean Tragedy is theatre at it’s most indulgent best. Before excepting the workshop, they warned of a sexual and violent nature. I got more excited. I first came across LAZARUS and it’s company by attending there run of The Changeling, and knew I must stalk Ricky Dukes out. So I did. I am from NYC and have a vast theactrical background from quite young age, So when I moved to London

Day 1: I think what was principally interesting to me was the variety of interpretations we all had upon an initial read. It felt to me as though and wealth of experience, individuality and openness hand brought within the first hour of the day so many hypothesis for the the revenges tragedy, which was such an exciting start. The day felt like a dissection, with the most part of this coming from a scenario wherein we explored the world of their ‘court’ - a scene in which juni

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 foru

Day 1 of the R&D started with us all talking about our first interpretations of the play. What stood out most to me was everyone’s reaction to the extreme levels of misogyny, and how that collided with the play’s farcical nature—its quick pace and those very on-the-nose character names almost commedia dell’arte in style.  I also referenced the Church of Bones in Naples, where people are given skulls to care for, believing it brings them luck, a possible link to Gloriana’s sku

Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy stands as a brilliant early example of parody, taking the familiar tropes of tragedy and stretching them towards the grotesque for comedic effect. During our research and development process with Lazarus Theatre Company, we found ourselves laughing, at times uncomfortably, at its black comedy. The play confronts us with themes of misogyny, corruption, torture, and even necrophilia. That tension between horror and humour became one of our mos