'Tis Pity She's a Whore (18/05/11, WYP)

'Tis Pity She's a Whore has an unfortunate distinction in being one of the lesser works I've seen at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. I've been spoilt by productions there over the past months and years, so it's inevitable there would be a mistep at some point. Written by John Ford around the 1600s and the time of Shakespeare, Whore shares many plot similarities with the Bard's Romeo and Juliet, Othello and Measure for Measure, but without his wit.

The drama sees Giovanni in love with his sister Annabella, while she is wooed by a number of young men. She's gets pregnant by her brother and when this is discovered she's forced to marry Soranzo. Meanwhile, Soranzo's discarded ex Hippolita vows revenge on him by plotting with his Iago-like manservant Vasques. There's also a comedy character called Bergetto who rides a moped across the stage (it's set in 1960's Venice) and is much funnier than any of the rest of the action. Inevitably things don't end well, with even Bergetto knifed to death, and the final scene has Giovanni cutting out his sister's heart, their father having a heart attack and the 'hero's bloody demise.

As ever with Elizabethan drama it took me a while to get into the rhythms of the language and figure out what was going on. The play was fairly easy to follow though, and the familiar storyline (not star-crossed lovers, but related ones) and characters (including a Friar and a nurse, Putana) meant that there were few surprises. Moments of broad humour sat uneasily alongside incest, revenge and murder, while all of the Friar's wordy scenes could have been cut entirely. I found my mind wandering during some of the scenes, including the climactic bedroom scene in which, for a reason I missed, Giovanni decides to kill his love/sister.

The cast were all very good, particularly Michael Matus in the dual role of Bergetto and the pompous Cardinal, although this production felt less inspired than previous Shakespeares with pedestrian sets and occasionally some actors felt like they were rushing their dialogue. The stand out moment wasn't even in the original script - Hippolita (Sally Dexter) belted out the Burt Bacharach/Hal David classic 'Anyone Who Had a Heart' before exposing her plan for revenge - I wanted to applaud after the performance, it was riveting! I think therein lies the problem with Whore, the source material wasn't amazing. Still, this was a good show, it was terrible - it certainly wasn't the execrable RSC version of The Tempest I witnessed at The Grand a few years ago.