The Changeling (1974)
by Thomas Middleton & William Roley
Directed by Director's Name
Performances: 28th April – 4th May 1974, Theatre
Contents
Introduction
Text about the play
Cast
- Vermandero (Father to Beatrice) - Leslie Lidyard
- Tomajo de Piracquo (A noble lord) - Terry Barden
- Alonjo de Piracquo (His brother, suitor to Beatrice) - Joe Fitzgerald
- Alsemero (A nobleman, afterward married to Beatrice) - Laurence Staig
- Jasperino (his friend) - Ray Jones
- Albius (A jealous doctor) - Dennis Packham
- Lollio (His man) - Mike Mattey
- Pedro (Friend to Antonio) - Jonathan Taylor
- Antonio (The Changeling) - Robert Holden
- Franciscus (The counterfeit madman) - Brian Scoltock
- De Flores (Servant to Vermandero) - Colm O'Neill
- Beatrice-Joanna (Daughter to Vermandero) - Midge Adams
- Diaphanta (Her waiting woman) - Susan Cooksey
- Isabella (Wife to Alibus) - Kate Staig
- Mad people - Brenda Maughan, Christine Wilson, Delia Taitt, Diana Hawkesworth, John Boyle & George McGillivray
Crew
Not recorded in archive book
Reviews
After a shuddering outbust of horror from the wronged husband Alsemero (Ray Jones, his dissembling wife Beatrice (Midge Adams) comes forth, bleedingprofusely from the throat, with her ill-favoured lover De Flores (Colm O'Neill) errect, defiant, like an angel of destruction.
Against a tableau of frozen grief in which the murdered Piracquo's brother participates equally with the counterfeit madmen Antonio and Franciscus, the guilty pair superbly play out the final act of their tradgedy.
If the rest of Jill Clark's production were on the same level of magnificence as this closing scene, its place would be assured at the pinicle of teh South London Theatre Centre's achievements. As things stand we must still welcome it, with all its unevenness, as a fine and imaginative piece of theatre.
"The Changeling" concerns change on many levels, with corruption running like a dark thread through its plotting. Thomas Middleton was cchiefly responsible for the main plot, William Rouwley for the comic sub-plot in the madhouse, where the feining madmen lay siege to the principal's wife, in a distorted mirror-image of the satanic liason betweeen De Flores and Beatrice-Joanna.
It is of course the latter which raised the play to the rank of one of the greates of all Jacobean dramas. Midge Adams perceptively grasps the terrible, ghastly innocence, almost dreamlike, in which she plunges to destruction and in which, steeped in blood, she can descant upon her honour.
Gallery
Reminiscences and Anecdotes
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See Also
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References
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