John Webster’s blood-soaked revenge tragedy The Duchess of Malfi, which “asks how anyone can survive in a world where masculinity has become toxic”, is to start a five-month run in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre at Stratford.
Maria Aberg directs. In 2016 her modern-dress production of Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus played in Stratford before transferring to London’s Barbican.
Joan Iyiola will play the title role in The Duchess of Malfi. She returns to the RSC after performing in The Roaring Girls season in 2014 and A World Elsewhere season in 2013. Earlier in 2017, she played Alonna in Boudica by Tristan Bernays at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Alexander Cobb plays her twin brother Ferdinand. Chris New returns to the RSC to play their brother The Cardinal. In 2007, he played Viola in Neil Bartlett’s production of Twelfth Night. His other credits include Quinn in Paul Auster's City of Glass, a 59 Productions, HOME and Lyric Hammersmith co-production in 2017, and Tom in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie at Nottingham Playhouse.
Sophie Stanton plays Mrs Rich. She was Marina in The Knot of the Heart by David Elderidge in 2011, a Scottish governess and widow Lin in Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine in 2007 and Margarita in Dying For It, Moira Buffini’s adaptation of Nikolai Erdman's The Suicide, also in 2007, all at the Almeida Theatre.
The rest of the cast comprises Jeff Alexander (doctor), Aretha Ayeh (Julia), Greg Barnett (Delio), Graeme Brookes (officer), Will Brown (Roderigo), Ashley Gayle (Silvio), Francis Gush (counter tenor), Amanda Hadingue (Cariola), Richard Hurst (Grisolan), Solomon Israel (officer), Nicolas Tennant (Bosola) and Paul Woodson (Antonio).
The Duchess of Malfi is designed by Naomi Dawson with lighting by Natasha Chivers. Music is by Orlando Gough with sound by Claire Windsor and movement by Ayse Tashkiran. It runs in the Swan Theatre from Thursday 1 March until Friday 3 August (press night Thursday 8 March).