The Spanish Tragedy  

The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd

The Rose Theatre, London

Review by Lesley Finlay

Going to the theatre is not a pastime for wimps as any member of the Rose Theatre audience will tell you. With no loos, no heating and no real stage, it still attracts paying punters for the simple fact that the modern ‘space’ sits atop the remains of the first Elizabethan theatre on Bankside. 

In the tiny foyer, award-winning artistic director Pepe Pryke whizzes about, checking programmes are laid out and saying hello to the posse of regular culture vultures. We are not allowed to take our seats behind a narrow curtain because the company is still doing final checks so I breathe in the smell of damp and history, in awe that this is the place where Thomas Kyd’s gruesome revenge drama was performed here for the first time in 1587. 

The Spanish Tragedy recounts the descent into madness of Hieronimo, the bereaved Marshall of Spain, whose son Horatio is murdered in a plot by Lorenzo, the nephew of the King of Spain, and Balthazar, the son of the Viceroy of Portugal, who has been snubbed by the King’s daughter Bel-Imperia. She then conspires with Hieronimo to extract a bloody revenge. 

The small cast of Planet Theatre Productions was full of gems from Sean Garvey’s eerie Revenge to Hayward Morse’s wonderfully moving portrayal of Hieronimo. Jan Hirst’s portrayal of Isabella, Horatio’s grieving mother is also worthy of praise. 

For students of Shakespeare, The Spanish Tragedy might look a little clumsy and comedic, with its (satisfyingly high, in my view) body count, highfalutin concepts and even its play within a play. But director Adrian Brown’s adaptation was accessible and presented the complicated story with great style and imagination. 

Brown played to his audience which, after all, is the point.