The White Devil
Encyclopedia
The White Devil is a revenge tragedy
Revenge play
The revenge play or revenge tragedy is a form of tragedy which was extremely popular in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. The best-known of these are Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and William Shakespeare's Hamlet...

 from 1612 by English playwright John Webster
John Webster
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...

 (1580–1634). A notorious failure when it premiered, Webster complained the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience. The play's complexity, sophistication and satire made it a poor fit with the repertory of Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean era London. -Formation:...

 at the Red Bull Theatre
Red Bull Theatre
The Red Bull was a playhouse in London during the 17th century. For more than four decades, it entertained audiences drawn primarily from the northern suburbs, developing a reputation for rowdy, often disruptive audiences...

, where it was first performed. It was successfully revived in 1630 by Queen Henrietta's Men
Queen Henrietta's Men
Queen Henrietta's Men was an important playing company or troupe of actors in Caroline era London. At their peak of popularity, Queen Henrietta's Men were the second leading troupe of the day, after only the King's Men.-Beginnings:...

 at the Cockpit Theatre
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was christened The Phoenix....

 and published again in 1631. In 1707 Nahum Tate
Nahum Tate
Nahum Tate was an Irish poet, hymnist, and lyricist, who became England's poet laureate in 1692.-Life:Nahum Teate came from a family of Puritan clergymen...

 published an adaptation of Webster's play titled Injured Love.

Background

The story is loosely based on an event in Italy thirty years prior to the play's composition: the murder of Vittoria Accoramboni
Vittoria Accoramboni
Vittoria Accoramboni was an Italian lady famous for her great beauty and accomplishments and for her death, a story that was later the basis for a play and three novels.-Biography:...

 in Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

 on 22 December 1585. Webster's dramatization of this event turned Italian corruption into a vehicle for depicting "the political and moral state of England in his own day", particularly the corruption at the royal court.

The title of The White Devil refers to a popular contemporary proverb which held that white people are "the white devils of the world. that white people brought evil to the world. " The play explores the differences between the reality of people and the way they depict themselves as good, "white" or pure.

Characters

  • Monticelso – A Cardinal, later Pope Paul IV.
  • Francisco De Medici – Duke of Florence; in Act V disguised as the Moor, Mulinassar.
  • Brachiano – Otherwise Paulo Giordano Orsini, The Duke of Brachiano, husband of Isabella, and in love with Vittoria.
  • Giovanni – Brachiano's son by Isabella.
  • Lodovico – Sometimes Lodowick, an Italian Count in love with Isabella.
  • Antonelli – Ludovico's friend and conspirator.
  • Gasparo - Ludovico's friend and conspirator.
  • Camillo – Vittoria's husband, nephew of Monticelso.
  • Carlo - Attendant of Brachiano, in league with Francisco.
  • Pedro - Attendant of Brachiano, in league with Francisco.
  • Hortensio – One of Brachiano's officers.
  • Marcello – An attendant to the Duke of Florence; Vittoria's younger brother.
  • Flamineo – Vittoria's brother. Brachiano's secretary.
  • Arragon - A Cardinal.
  • Julio - A Doctor
  • Jacques – A Moor; servant to Giovanni.
  • Isabella – Francisco De Medici's sister; first wife of Brachiano
  • Vittoria Corombona – a Venetian lady, sister of Flamineo. first married to Camillo – afterwards to Brachiano
  • Cornelia – Mother to Vittoria, Flamineo, and Marcello
  • Zanche – Moor servant to Vittoria; in love with Flamineo, then Francisco
  • Simon – Auditor to Duke of Florence/White Devil
  • Taaffe – Apprentice of Brachiano, T-Bird
  • Ambassadors, Courtiers, Officers and Guards, Attendants, Conjurer, Chancellor, Register and Lawyers, Conclavist, Armourer, Physicians, Page, Matron of the House of Convertites, Ladies.

Basis

Webster based The White Devil on newsletter versions of the story of the killing of Vittoria Accoramboni. Such recollections detailed how Vittoria, of a proud but poor family, married the nephew of Cardinal Motalto. In 1580, she met Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, previously married to Isabella Medici of the famous Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

 family.

Upon meeting Vittoria, the Duke fell desperately in love with her and arranged for the Cardinal's nephew to be killed in order that he might secretly marry Vittoria. Pope Gregory soon found out and ordered Vittoria and the Duke to part and even resorted to having Vittoria imprisoned in Castel Angelo under the suspicion of having killed her husband.

In 1585 a new pope was elected and amid the confusion of change Vittoria and Bracciano married and left Rome. In the play the Pope is misnamed Paul IV, (he was Sixtus V, Paul IV having died in 1559). Eight months later the Duke died and the Medici family, wishing to protect their family interests, challenged his will which dictated Vittoria to be in charge of his fortune. When Vittoria refused to cooperate, the Medicis arranged for her to be killed. She was stabbed to death in Padua by Ludovico Orsini.

Plot summary

Count Lodovico is banished from Rome for debauchery and murder; his friends promise to work for the repeal of his sentence. The Duke of Brachiano has conceived a violent passion for Vittoria Corombona, daughter of a noble but impoverished Venetian family, despite the fact they are both married to other people. Vittoria's brother Flamineo, employed as a secretary to Brachiano, has been scheming to bring his sister and the Duke together in the hope of advancing his career. The plan is foiled by the arrival of Brachiano's wife Isabella, escorted by her brother and Cardinal Monticelso. They are both outraged by the rumours of Brachiano's infidelity and set out to encourage him to make the affair open; before that happens Brachiano and Vittoria's brother arrange to have Camillo (Vittoria's husband) and Isabella murdered.

Vittoria is put on trial for the murder of her husband and although there is no real evidence against her, she is condemned by the Cardinal to imprisonment in a convent for penitent whores. Flamineo pretends madness in order to protect himself from awkward suggestions. The banished Count Lodovico is pardoned and returns to Rome: confessing he had been secretly in love with Isabella, he vows to avenge her death. Isabella's brother Francisco also plots revenge. He pens a love letter to Vittoria, which falls into the hands of Brachiano. It fuels his jealousy and forces him to elope with Vittoria. Cardinal Monticelso is elected Pope and as his first act he excommunicates Vittoria and Brachiano.

Vittoria and Brachiano, now married, hold court in Padua. Three mysterious strangers have arrived to enter Brachiano's service. These are Francisco, disguised as Mulinassar a Moor and Lodovico and Gasparo, disguised as Capuchin monks, all conspiring to avenge Isabella's death. They begin their revenge by poisoning Brachiano. As he is dying, Lodovico and Gasparo reveal themselves to him. Next Zanche, Vittoria's Moorish maid, who has fallen in love with her supposed countryman Mulinassar, reveals to him the murders of Isabella and Camillo and Flamineo's part in them.

Flamineo is banished from court by Giovanni, the new Duke and sensing that his crimes are catching up with him he goes to see Vittoria. He tries to persuade her and Zanche to shoot each other. Vittoria and Zanche shoot Flamineo and thinking him dead, exult in his death and their escape. Much to their surprise Flamineo rises from the 'dead' and reveals to them the pistols were not loaded. While trying to exact his own revenge on Vittoria, Lodovico and Gasparo then enter the scene and complete their revenge by killing them. Giovanni and officers come to the scene and the play ends with Giovanni sending Lodovico off to torture.

Productions

The play was written for and first performed by Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean era London. -Formation:...

 at the Red Bull Theatre
Red Bull Theatre
The Red Bull was a playhouse in London during the 17th century. For more than four decades, it entertained audiences drawn primarily from the northern suburbs, developing a reputation for rowdy, often disruptive audiences...

 in Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. From 1900 to 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The well after which it was named was rediscovered in 1924. The watchmaking and watch repairing trades were once of great importance...

 in the early months of 1612. The troupe usually offered simpler and more optimistic plays of the type written by their dramatist, Thomas Heywood
Thomas Heywood
Thomas Heywood was a prominent English playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre.-Early years:...

. The play staged before Webster's seems to have been If This Be Not a Good Play, a tragicomedy
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...

 by Thomas Dekker. Webster's play failed at its debut. In the prefatory epistle to the quarto, Webster praised the actors, mentioning Richard Perkins
Richard Perkins (17th-century actor)
Richard Perkins was a prominent early seventeenth-century actor, most famous for his performance in the role of Barabas in Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta...

 but complains of the winter weather and above all, of the audience, whose intellect he compares to that of donkeys.

The first successful modern production was that of the Marlowe Society
Marlowe Society
The Marlowe Society is a Cambridge University theatre club for Cambridge students. It is dedicated to achieving a high standard of student drama in Cambridge...

 (ADC Theatre, Cambridge, March 1920), with music by C. Armstrong Gibbs and with Eric Maschwitz
Eric Maschwitz
Albert Eric Maschwitz OBE , known as Eric Maschwitz and sometimes credited as Holt Marvell, was an English entertainer, writer, broadcaster and broadcasting executive.-Life and work:...

 as Vittoria. The Society specialised in Elizabethan and Jacobean revivals in uncut texts performed with their original economy and rapidity, and with the female roles played by men. "Anybody who enjoys hearing beautiful poetry beautifully spoken" wrote the editor of the Cambridge Review, "and tragic passion ‘with dignity put on’ should not miss this wonderful opportunity. What a magnificent play!" "After three hundred years it must console the poet in his Elysium to know that at last his play has been played with success before a ‘full and understanding auditory’. We must confess that to us it was the ritual of an initiation to the mysteries of a play which we always believed to be great, but which we never realized was quite so wonderful". The production inspired the Cambridge scholar F. L. Lucas
F. L. Lucas
Frank Laurence Lucas was an English classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright, political polemicist, and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge....

 to edit the complete plays of Webster. "But in what exactly does the fascination of Webster consist?" he asked in the New Statesman. "What could make the Cambridge production of The White Devil in 1920 seem still, to at least two who saw it then without any preconceptions, the most staggering performance they had ever known?"

In 1925 the Renaissance Theatre mounted a heavily cut version featuring Viola Tree
Viola Tree
Viola Tree was an English actress, singer, playwright and author. Daughter of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree, she made many of her early appearances with his company at His Majesty's Theatre...

 and Cedric Hardwicke
Cedric Hardwicke
Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke was a noted English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly fifty years...

. The production was not well reviewed, perhaps mainly because of a failure to understand the special requirements of Renaissance dramaturgy. Webster scholar F. L. Lucas
F. L. Lucas
Frank Laurence Lucas was an English classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright, political polemicist, and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge....

 asked in the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

, "Who can hope to speak passionate verse lying on one elbow on the floor?"

In 1965, an Off-Broadway production was staged at the Circle in the Square starring Frank Langella
Frank Langella
-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...

 as Flamineo, Carrie Nye
Carrie Nye
-Early life:Nye was born Caroline Nye McGeoy in Greenwood, Mississippi; her father was a vice president of a local bank. She attended Stephens College and then went on to the Yale School of Drama.-Career:...

 as Vittoria, Paul Stevens
Paul Stevens (actor)
Paul Stevens was an American film and television actor.Stevens played Colonel Charles R. Codman in the 1970 film Patton. He appeared in the 1960 film Exodus and the 1969 film Marlowe...

 as Brachiano, Robert Burr as Francisco, Eric Berry as Monticelso and Christine Pickles as Cornelia. The production ran from December 6, 1965 to April 17, 1966 and won the Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...

 for Distinguished Performance (Frank Langella).

The Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...

 performed The White Devil in 1996 at the Swan Theatre
Swan Theatre (Stratford)
The Swan Theatre is a theatre belonging to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It is built on to the side of the larger Royal Shakespeare Theatre, occupying the Victorian Gothic structure that formerly housed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre that preceded the RST but was...

 in Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...

 (later transferred to London to The Pit at The Barbican), directed by Gale Edwards
Gale Edwards
Gale Edwards is an Australian theatre director, who has worked extensively throughout Australia and internationally. She has also directed for television and film. She began her career at Adelaide youth theatre company Energy Connection...

 with Richard McCabe
Richard McCabe
Richard McCabe is a Scottish actor.-Biography:Richard McCabe was born in Glasgow to a Scottish father and French mother . He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , where he won several awards. Following the early death of his father and his mother's re-marriage, he grew up in Sussex where...

 as Flamineo, Philip Quast
Philip Quast
Philip Quast is an Australian actor perhaps best known for his role as Inspector Javert in the stage musical version of Les Misérables, or for appearances in numerous Australian soap operas including Sons and Daughters, The Young Doctors and Police Rescue.-Personal life:Quast was born in 1957 in...

 as Ludovico, Ray Fearon
Ray Fearon
Fitzroy Raymond "Ray" Fearon is a British actor who has worked extensively in theatre, and is known for playing garage mechanic Nathan Harding on ITV's long-running soap opera Coronation Street.-Early life:...

 as Brachiano, Jane Gurnett
Jane Gurnett
Jane Gurnett is a British actress best known for her leading roles in British TV series Casualty , Dangerfield and the second incarnation of Crossroads .-Career:...

 as Vittoria, Stephen Boxer
Stephen Boxer
Stephen Boxer is an English actor who has appeared in films, on television and on stage and is best known for appearing in the BBC One daytime soap opera Doctors...

 as Francisco and Philip Voss
Philip Voss
Philip Voss is an English stage, radio, film and television actor. He has played small roles since the 1960s, but more notable ones include roles in such as the 1964 Doctor Who serial, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, the 1981 Lord of the Rings radio series, Indian Summer, an RSC 1996...

.

On August 15, 2010 BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

 broadcast a production adapted and directed by Marc Beeby which, according to the BBC Radio 3 web site, "sets the action in a murky underworld of the 1950s - a world that seeks to hide its shifting alliances, betrayals and sudden violence beneath a flaky veneer of honour and respectability." The production featured Patrick Kennedy
Patrick Kennedy (British actor)
Patrick Kennedy is an English actor. His largest role to date is in the BBC's Bleak House as Richard Carstone. He again appeared in a BBC drama having been chosen for a role in the 2008 re-make of The 39 Steps and also appeared in the BBC drama Einstein and Eddington.He has also appeared in...

 as Flamineo, Anna Maxwell Martin
Anna Maxwell Martin
Anna Maxwell Martin , sometimes credited as Anna Maxwell-Martin, is a two-time BAFTA award-winning English actress who has won acclaim for her performances as Lyra in His Dark Materials at the Royal National Theatre, as Esther Summerson in the BBC's 2005 adaptation of Bleak House, and as N in...

 as Vittoria, Frances de la Tour
Frances de la Tour
Frances de la Tour is an English actress perhaps best known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the British sitcom Rising Damp, and as Madame Olympe Maxime in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.-Early life and family:De la...

 as Cornelia, Shaun Dingwall
Shaun Dingwall
Shaun Dingwall is a British actor and is known for his roles on British television.-Early life:Shaun Dingwall was born in 1972 and attended Ilford County High School for boys. His initial ambition was to become a photographer and for several years he worked as an assistant photographer within the...

 as Brachiano, Peter Wright as Francisco, Sean Baker as Monticelso and Harry Myers
Harry Myers
Harry C. Myers , sometimes credited as Henry Myers, was an American film actor and director. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and died in Hollywood, California from pneumonia...

 as Ludovico.

Further reading

  • The short story "A Christmas in Padua" in F. L. Lucas
    F. L. Lucas
    Frank Laurence Lucas was an English classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright, political polemicist, and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge....

    's The Woman Clothed with the Sun (1937) retells the final hours of Vittoria Accoramboni (the original of Webster's White Devil) in December 1585, slanting the narrative from her perspective.
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