‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore

Alex Lippard, who last year directed Friendly Fire’s inaugural production, Hecuba starring Kristin Linklater, stages ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore. Esteemed stage veterans join some of the hottest young talent to come out of the top acting programs in recent years for this production.

The play tells the story of a town, Parma, Italy, that destroys itself in the wake of a forbidden love affair. An unglued and unsettling response to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, this 1630 tragedy of love, incest, and revenge is shockingly modern. With clear and gripping poetry, John Ford wrestles with those enduring forces of evil which plague us today: driving teens to slaughter their jeering classmates, prompting clergy to cover up scandals, and deluding our highest powers into justifying their own hypocrisy as righteousness. Parents turn a blind eye to their childrens’ sickly melancholy. A young generation without moral guidance or spiritual grounding is left to their own dangerous devices in a world where a woman is a possession to be hawked to the highest bidder, and where a man is measured by his skill with a blade and the number of notches in his bedpost.

Second perhaps only to Titus Andronicus in its depiction sexual cruelty, violence and spectacular revenge, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore is a rousingly entertaining evening of theatre which, once it has drawn its audience into a pulpy tale of jealousy and betrayal, shockingly subverts the Jacobean revenge form to plumb the depths of universal questions of life and death, morality and faith. ‘Tis Pity is produced by Friendly Fire in association with Storm Theatre.

Exceptions to Performance Schedule: Additional Saturday October 15 matinee at 2pm; Additional Wednesday, October 19 performance at 8pm.

Box Office Hours: 30 minutes prior to each performance

Group Sales Number (15+): 212-838-1482

Appropriate For Ages: 14+