YORK company Six Lips Theatre are giving John Webster's macabre revenge chiller The Duchess Of Malfi a fashion makeover at The Fleeting Arms, Gillygate, York, from Sunday to Tuesday.
"Webster's play is considered one of the greatest tragedies of English Renaissance drama," says director-designer Roxanna Klimaszewska, whose adaptation cuts the 1613 work from four hours to a mean and lean two hours and uses a traverse stage with a catwalk down the middle.
"We're re-working the Jacobean script, with its story of love ending in a nightmarish incestuous revenge, into a timeless Milanese fashion experience. Join us at the side of the catwalk, where we delve into the true nature of modern Western culture, strewn with superficial photo-shopped images, fickle in nature and desperate to be on board the latest fads and trends."
Six Lips Theatre – named after the three female founders – are known for "exploring and disbanding the perceptions of women and the female form". "Our strong visual concept for this production will highlight the timeless issues of infringed human rights, the struggle for social equality and inescapable class systems in Webster's play," says Roxanna.
Six LIps Theatre's The Duchess Of Malfi
"By no means a traditional adaptation, expect the unexpected as we merge physical theatre, projections by Hannah Wallace and electronic soundscapes by Calvin Miller that will guide you through The Duchess Of Malfi."
Expanding on Six Lips' reimagining of Webster's twisted work, Roxanna says: "We wanted to bring it up to date, to make it relevant, aware that there are very melodramatic elements to it, even pantomime elements, and that it also needed cutting massively.
"I've been the overall editor for the script, but the whole creative purpose has been to do it as a community ensemble project, working with performers with aspirations to become professionals, who have all had a say in the editing process."
Roxanna had studied The Duchess Of Malfi in her MA studies in theatre writing, directing and performing at the University of York, prompting her wish to adapt it anew for the stage.
"The idea was to highlight what's already in the play, like keeping the Italian setting, while we'd also show the parallels between the fashion world and the play, where the Duchess has to put on appearances, just as in the modelling and fashion world, there's exclusion if you don't conform to certain looks and body types," she says.
"While women can choose to enjoy fashion, if women of a certain age don't wear make-up it gets noticed, or if they wear clothes that others don't think suit them, it's noticed. There's pressure there, it's undeniable, like the way women are under pressure to lose baby fat as soon as they have a child; so we've tried to highlight that, wherever it's applicable in the play."
Director Hannah Wallace is using a cast of nine: Lily Luty, Donna Kitching, Sophie Collerton, Six Lips members Stacey Johnstone and Roxanna Klimaszewska, James Rotchell, Dan Hardy, Tom Straszewski and Stuart Freestone.
"Both the men and women will be wearing suits, as that's a really popular look right now, and a suit is something that both men and women can wear, so there'll be no dresses at all on stage," says Roxanna.
"Everyone has a small item or token to distinguish who they are, but every woman at some point will be playing the Duchess too, because she's a universal character, so we want to indicate that she's an everywoman."
The issue of infringed human rights permeates Six Lips' show. "We're fighting from the women's corner," says Roxanna. "Everyone deserves the right to decide who they can marry, so Webster's play has a timeless resonance, and everyone in the audience, whether a woman or a man, will feel a connection with what happens."
Such decisions as sharing out the Duchess's role are in keeping with Six Lips' wish for audiences to "expect the unexpected". "I think 'why not' do it this way? It's a play that's been done many times - I remember Cheek By Jowl setting it in a gangster world - and I don't want to see a grand old play just done the same way every time," says Roxanna. "I want the play to be challenged every day, and it's a great play that can withstand being challenged."
Six Lips are contemplating touring the production, so watch this space for further developments. Meanwhile, tickets for Sunday to Tuesday's 7.30pm performances can be booked at sixlips.co.uk
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