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WOMEN & SEXUALITY IN THE CHANGELING The portrayal of the three female characters in The Changeling are radical in context of the period Middleton wrote and lived in. They are presented in an entirely human, three dimensional and complex way; not diminished in the role of either ‘whore’ or ‘virgin’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’. They have a strong sexuality and act out their desires. In the play the female characters develop and learn about themselves; Beatrice-Joanna experiences passion and sexual discovery, realising her passion for Alsemero: ‘A True deserver like a diamond sparkles. In darkness you may see him, that’s in absence Which is the greatest darkness falls on love Yet is he best discerned then with intellectual eyesight… … Some speedy way must be remembered’ (2.1) And later an attraction for Deflores once their relationship has been consummated. She responds to her father’s assertion that Deflores is: ‘good on all occasions’ by concurring that he is ‘[a] wondrous necessary man, my lord’ (5.1). She also states ‘I’m forced to love thee now’, ‘Cause thou provid’st so carefully for my honour’ ‘His face loathes one,’ she admits, ‘But look upon his care, who would not love him?’ (5.1) Diaphanta is shown to enjoy sex for it’s own sake, without guilt. She spends a long time with Alsemero on Beatrice-Joanna’s wedding night, simply because she is having so much fun. As she says; ‘I never made so sweet a bargain’ (5.1) And Isabella has a shrewd understanding of how to outwit lustful men; including Antonio and Pedro/Franciscus: To Antonio; ‘No I have no beauty now Nor never had, but what was in my garments. You a quick sighted lover? Come not near me. Keep your comparisons, you are aptly clad. I came a feigner to return stark mad’ (4.3) The appropriate behaviour for women in the 17 th Century was to be chaste and obedient. This expectancy of chastity and submission to one's father and husband,therefore defines a ‘bad woman’ when the rules are broken. Beatrice-Joanna defies her father and future husband Piraquo and follows her passion for Alsemero. Women had few options; a ‘good’ woman's essence was a virginal body, so the very sexuality of that body suggested possible deviant behaviour. In ETT’s production of The Changeling, the Director has portrayed the sex scene between Deflores and Beatrice-Joanna in a dumb show; Deflores does not physically overpower Beatrice-Joanna, but she seems to submit to him as she cannot see another way out of the situation she finds herself in. Beatrice-Joanna and Deflores Sexual Relationship Small group discussion points: • Does Beatrice-Joanna consent to have sex with Deflores? • Does she choose to have sex with him for her own gains? • Does she feel desire for him? Anna Koval as BEATRICE-JOANNA and Samantha Lawson as DIAPHANTA in rehearsal (photo: Stephen Vaughan) • In the production why does Beatrice-Joanna have sex with Deflores? 22
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR’S ESSAY by Suba Das Borrowing a phrase of Henry James, T.S Eliot’s eponymous Lady speaks of her ‘buried life’ in the 1917 poem Portrait of a Lady. The 1917 volume, The Love-song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Observations abounds with characters who have half-lives, secret selves and hidden imaginings beneath their surface skin. Dramatically, the collaboration of Anton Chekhov and Konstantin Stanislavski first explicitly formalised this idea of subtext, of characters with lives that are buried beneath what they apparently say or do in the late 19 th Century. As the great theatre critic Martin Esslin writes: ‘It was Chekhov who first deliberately wrote dialogue in which the mainstream of emotional action ran underneath the surface. It was he who articulated the notion that human beings hardly ever speak in explicit terms among each other about their deepest emotions, that the great, tragic, climactic moments are often happening beneath outwardly trivial conversation.’ (Martin Esslin, from Text and Subtext in Shavian Drama, in 1922: Shaw and the last Hundred Years, ed. Bernard. F. Dukore, Penn State Press, 1994) However, a play like The Changeling, written some 250 years earlier than Chekhov’s works, with its disguises, hidden liaisons and masked intentions is packed full of ‘buried life’. Accordingly, a key focus of our rehearsal room work has been unpacking the depth of the play and finding the tensions that are really bubbling beneath the surface. An example from the opening of the play would be Beatrice-Joanna’s first entrance from the church, and her first encounter with Alsemero. Apparently a very simple, coincidental meeting, this moment is in fact packed with Beatrice-Joanna’s dangerous rebellion against both social convention and her father’s intended marriage for her. To help clarify how loaded this moment was, Anna Koval (Beatrice-Joanna) first improvised a sequence with Samantha Lawson (Diaphanta) of how Beatrice-Joanna might normally leave a church in stately, austere procession. This made the risk and flirtation of the actual sequence we see on stage explosively clear for the performers. The interaction of subtext and apparent action comes to a climax in the scene of Beatrice-Joanna’s commissioning of Deflores to kill Alonzo. The scene itself is loaded with asides, in which Deflores and Beatrice-Joanna reveal their true, and very contradictory intentions beneath the apparent agreement they are making. This very explicit creation of a subtext makes innuendo a key part of the scene – Deflores tells Beatrice-Joanna that the thought of killing Alonzo ‘ravishes’, simultaneously disguising and revealing his intention to claim Beatrice-Joanna’s virginity. Accordingly in rehearsal, we explored ways of staging the scene that made the subtext entirely explicit, with lots of direct sexualisation, and then completely hidden, to discover how to strike a balance that allowed both characters to believe they were fulfilling opposing objectives. The audience is primed for innuendo in the play by the bawdy fun of the madhouse scenes. Alibius and Lollio’s first scene together is a masterpiece in apparent kindness from Lollio concealing a mine of humour at the foolish Alibius’ expense– for instance Alibius being an ‘old tree raising himself higher and broader than the young plants’ implies an old man with a young wife growing older through the cuckold’s horns. Suba Das (photo: Stephen Vaughan) In the madhouse scenes, we discovered that this innuendo could be played for its full worth as the sexually charged humour of this world allowed it. However a real danger emerged in how to handle the interplay between the social lives of the characters in the courtly scenes, and their buried narratives. For instance if Deflores’ obsession with Beatrice-Joanna is too apparent, then Beatrice-Joanna’s decision to trust him with the commission is a reckless move on her part. Having identified the character’s subtexts and buried journeys in the play as part of the rehearsal process, it is important to then return to what the action and society of the play itself demands so that both the visible and invisible worlds of the play hang together. As the play proceeds to its gory climax these separations and distinctions fall apart spectacularly. 23
Page 1 and 2: 25 Short Street London SE1 8LJ T: 0
Page 3 and 4: CREATIVE POLICY ETT is England’s
Page 5 and 6: STEPHEN UNWIN ON THE CHANGELING The
Page 7 and 8: THOMAS MIDDLETON (1580-1627) Middle
Page 9 and 10: JACOBEAN DRAMA The term ‘Jacobean
Page 11 and 12: MADNESS AND SANITY IN THE 17 TH CEN
Page 13 and 14: [ACT 2 SCENE 2] BEATRICE-JOANNA ...
Page 15 and 16: INTERVIEW WITH MARK BOUMAN Costume
Page 17 and 18: INTERVIEW WITH PAUL WILLS Set Desig
Page 19 and 20: INTERVIEW WITH TIMANDRA DYER Produc
Page 21: The Role of Women Questions: • Do
Page 25 and 26: enough, she doesn’t blush, whatev
Page 27 and 28: Terrence But it’s the unmarried o
Page 29 and 30: PLACING THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY LA
Page 31 and 32: 2. WRITING EXERCISE In pairs, spend
Page 33: FURTHER READING The Changeling, by

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