.tmb-gal-1340.jpg?sfvrsn=6cf23721_2)
We’re going to take a break from nooze today and watch The Duchess of Malfi, first staged in either 1613 or 1614, a loosely-based historical drama by John Webster. Neither Patty nor I have ever seen it before. It was supposed to be covered in a course I took in Jacobean drama back in college, but the course was superficial and we never actually read the play. It has a great reputation, and is mentioned in works by Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Ngaio Marsh, and other great English mystery writers.
This play has a reputation for wallowing in gore, treachery, and shockingly bad behavior on the part of Renaissance Italian nobility. When they went bad, they went all the way. Our reader, Phoebe, who is an expert in such things, has praised it. So it’ll be her fault if we get too grossed out to watch the whole thing. But it might be good to be reminded that the human race survived the Renaissance… somehow.
Sometimes it strikes me as miraculous that we’re still here in spite of all our sins. We can chalk that up to God’s grace. Without it, we wouldn’t last two weeks. Without it, how could we ever hope for something better?