The Changeling

The Changeling

Written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley
Performed in English
2006

Beatrice Joanna is worshipped from afar by the ugly de Flores. He will do anything for her. Anything at all. Even dispose of her unwanted bridegroom. But the untouchable heiress has made one mistake, de Flores’ fee is not gold, but the beautiful Beatrice Joanna herself. Their famous descent into hell is relieved by passages of startling humour. Lunatics and ghosts people this disturbing thriller of horror, sex and obsession.

Written by Middleton and Rowley, contemporaries of Shakespeare, The Changeling is one of the greatest plays in the English language.

Produced by Cheek by Jowl in a co-production with BITE:06 Barbican; Les Gémeaux / Sceaux / Scène Nationale; Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg.

“A deliciously excessive gory glory”
The Sunday Telegraph

Cast and creative team

Cast

Name	Character
Tom Hiddleston	Alsemero
Jonathan Annan	Jasperino
Olivia Williams	Beatrice-Joanna
Jennifer Kidd	Diaphanta
David Collings	Vermandero
Will Keen	De Flores
Jim Hooper	Alibius
Tobias Beer	Lollio
Philip McGinley	Pedro/Franciscus
Phil Cheadle	Antonio
Laurence Spellman	Alonzo
Clifford Samuel	Tomazo
Jodie McNee	Isabella

Creative Team

Role	Name
Director	Declan Donnellan
Designer	Nick Ormerod
Associate & Movement Director	Jane Gibson
Lighting Designer	Judith Greenwood
Music	Catherine Jayes
Technical Director	Simon Bourne
Costumes	Angie Burns
Assistant Director	Owen Horsley
Sound Designer	Gregory Clarke
Company Manager	Mark Simpson
Technical Stage Manager	Dougie Wilson
Deputy Stage Manager	Clare Loxley
Assistant Stage Manager	Martha Mamo
Wardrobe Manager	Vic Cree
Fight Director	Terry King

Previous performances

Previous Performances

Date	Location
19–22 July 2006	Madrid, Teatro Español, Spain
12–15 July 2006	Barcelona, Grec Festival, Spain
28 June–1 July 2006	Madrid, Almagro Festival, Spain
11 May–10 June 2006	London, Barbican, UK
3–6 May 2006	Coventry, Warwick Arts Centre, UK
29 April 2006	Frankfurt, Festival des Unions des Théâtre de l’Europe, Germany
24–25 April 2006	Luxembourg, Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, Luxembourg
11–15 April 2006	Nancy, Théâtre de la Manufacture, France
5–7 April 2006	Reims, La Comédie de Reims, France
15 March–2 April 2006	Sceaux, Les Gémeaux Scène Nacionale, France

Reviews

“Beautiful theatre, Shakespearian in its grandeur… the actors are quite simply phenomenal.”
Le Figaro

“Surely one of the greatest plays about ungovernable lust and human frailty ever written, and rarely done with such clarity or purpose as in Declan Donnellan’s production, which incorporates the mad scenes into the central plot to unprecedented effect.”
The Independent

“Swift and fatal. This is a star performance. The place should be packed.”
The Sunday Times

“A deliciously excessive gory glory.”
The Sunday Telegraph

“No company could make this play so clear, without losing any of the murk, than Cheek by Jowl…They forcefully show that every play makes its effects through movement as well as speech…Everything is turned inside out.”
The Observer

“Donnellan illuminates the play’s parallel undercurrents with his characteristic clarity and lucidity, bringing both worlds together in an unhinged wedding dance tableau, and staying constantly alert to the play’s inverted vocabulary.”
Metro

“Madness, as much as passion, spins the plot in Middleton and Rowley’s dark Jacobean masterpiece. And the supreme virtue of Declan Donnellan’s Cheek by Jowl production is that the two qualities are virtually inseparable: love and lunacy join hands in a production marked by unity of purpose and what one character calls ‘shivering sweat’.”
The Guardian