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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

NameCharacter
Tom HiddlestonAlsemero
Jonathan AnnanJasperino
Olivia WilliamsBeatrice-Joanna
Jennifer KiddDiaphanta
David CollingsVermandero
Will KeenDe Flores
Jim HooperAlibius
Tobias BeerLollio
Philip McGinleyPedro/Franciscus
Phil CheadleAntonio
Laurence SpellmanAlonzo
Clifford SamuelTomazo
Jodie McNeeIsabella

Creative Team

RoleName
DirectorDeclan Donnellan
DesignerNick Ormerod
Associate & Movement DirectorJane Gibson
Lighting DesignerJudith Greenwood
MusicCatherine Jayes
Technical DirectorSimon Bourne
CostumesAngie Burns
Assistant DirectorOwen Horsley
Sound DesignerGregory Clarke
Company ManagerMark Simpson
Technical Stage ManagerDougie Wilson
Deputy Stage ManagerClare Loxley
Assistant Stage ManagerMartha Mamo
Wardrobe ManagerVic Cree
Fight DirectorTerry King
Previous performances

Previous Performances

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

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
Production photo
Photograph: Keith Pattison
Production photo
Photograph: Keith Pattison
Production photo
Photograph: Keith Pattison
Production photo
Photograph: Keith Pattison

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

Le Figaro

Think but upon the distance that creation
Set ‘twixt thy blood and mine, and keep thee there

We have but two sorts of people in the house… that’s fools and madmen

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