The Daily Telegraph
by Charles Spencer, 4 January 1996

It is an unforgettable start to the theatrical year. With our stomachs still unsettled from seasonal over indulgence, Cheek by Jowl wake up the West End from its torpor with Webster's gory compendium of horror.

Curiously, this is the second production of The Duchess of Malfi (1614) at Wyndham's in recent months -- a welcome indication that the commercial theatre is still prepared to take risks -- and Cheek by Jowl's staging is as fresh, startling and uncluttered as we have come to expect from this excellent company.

Better still, Anastasia Hille's performance in the title role leaves no doubt that she is a major star in the making. There is wit and an intelligence that put me in mind of Maggie Smith.

Critics have always been uneasy about Webster's Jacobean tragedies. Shaw dubbed him the Tussaud laureate and the dramatist's lurid devices, ranging from severed hands to poisoned bibles, run a grave risk of seeming risibly over the top.

Declan Donnellan's production taps into the play's dark heart, making the preposterous seem psychologically plausible. Whatís more, Webster's portrait of a dysfunctional royal family has resonance at a time when the House of Windsor seems intent upon tearing itself apart.

Not that Donnellan goes as far as presenting the persecuted Duchess of Malfi as a Diana-like 'Queen of Hearts' and her evil brothers as the enemy camp. The action is set in the early years of this century and if Hille reminds you of anyone it is Princess Margaret. The Duchess gets through the Scotch and cigarettes at a tremendous rate as the tragedy engulfs her, and in her doomed love for her steward Antonio, one is reminded of the Townsend romance.

There is no attempt at plodding naturalism here, and the play, staged on Nick Ormerod's dark, curtain shrouded design, achieves a dream like atmosphere. In the opening scene, the members of the courts seem like frozen statues, while after her death the Duchess remains on stage like a ghost, and attempts to warn her lover of his danger in a brilliantly staged echo scene.

It would be easy to make the Duchess seem like a wholly innocent victim of her brothers' malevolence. Hille offers a far more interesting interpretation. The Duchess too has been warped by privilege. She is at once haughty and neurotic. Banter gives way to bursts of furious temper and in the scene in which she woos Antonio, Hille conjures up an extraordinary mixture of commanding arrogance and yielding passion. The moment when she steps out of her clinging gold sheath of a dress is the most erotic on the London stage.

As pride is shattered by catastrophe, what makes the performance so moving, so chilling is that this Duchess greets horror with wild laughter and another drag on her fag. She simply can't believe what is happening to her yet, yet never quite loses her style or courage. Presented with a severed hand she calmly disposes of if a wastepaper basket, while the famous line, "I am Duchess of Malfi still" isn't a declaration of defiance but a bitterly ironic comment on the absurdity of the situation. Yet as death approaches, Hille suggests a sense of understanding and redemption.

Scott Handy plays her incestuous twin brother Ferdinand like a damaged child. He has a horrid giggle, hysterical tantrums and an infantile sexuality. In contrast, Paul Brennen is all icily controlled evil as the cardinal. George Anton could make much more of the ambiguity of Bosola, the serviceable malcontent with an awakening conscience. Matthew Macfadyen is a disappointingly bland Antonio.

There is however, no mistaking the clarity and the claustrophobic power of this production which chillingly captures the moral wasteland of the human soul.