Women Beware Women
by Thomas Middleton
5 STARS
'Marianne Elliott's magnificent and disturbing National Theatre revival.'
Independent
4 STARS
'Almost indecently enjoyable... Dark, decadent and immensely stylish, Women Beware Women makes you laugh even as you shiver.'
Daily Telegraph
4 STARS
'Womanly wiliness is centre stage in (Marianne Elliott's) magnificently seductive production... This is a staging that wraps its inky fingers around you and holds you, spellbound.'
Financlal Times
4 STARS
'In a top quality cast, Harriet Walter is magisterial as Livia.'
Daily Express
4 STARS
'Marianne Elliott's dazzling production... brings to vivid life Middleton's corrupt, cynical world.'
Time Out
In the Italian court, where wealth secures power and power serves lust, the lascivious Duke can play wherever he chooses. He catches the eye of another’s exquisite bride, Bianca. Can a glance secure her fate, a bribe appease her husband?
It’s a witty age,
Never were finer snares for women’s honesties
Than are devis’d in these days; no spider’s web
Made of a daintier thread than are now practis’d.
Isabella’s father would marry her off to a rich young idiot, while Hippolito has won her trust and desires her truly. But he’s her uncle. These are her choices. If twice-widowed Livia conspires against her sex to gain a little clout, she’s only fighting to survive.
O the deadly snares
That women set for women, without pity
Either to soul or honour!
Corruption will not go unpunished in Thomas Middleton’s blackly funny, fast and ferocious tragedy.
Sin tastes, at the first draught,
like wormwood water
But, drunk again, ’tis nectar ever after.
Assisted Performances
Audio-Described performances: Friday 4 June at 7.30pm, Saturday 5 June at 2pm (Touch Tour at 12.30pm)
Captioned performance: Tuesday 8 June at 7.30pm
Women Beware Women finished on: 4 July 2010
