[In the review below, Macaulay questions the viability of David Leveaux's interpretation of Giovanni and Annabella's incestuous relationship in his 1992 staging of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore at London's Pit Theatre.]

The strange thing about David Leveaux's staging of 'Tis Pity for the Royal Shakespeare Company is that the central brother and sister are played as the least polished people in this Italian society. Even the ninny Bergetto has a certain public-school edge to him. But not so Giovanni and Annabella. Jonathan Cullen, first seen in a coat whose sleeves are too long for him, underplays Giovanni's academic flair and gives him, unlike anybody else, a York-shire accent. He (especially) and Saskia Reeves's Anna-bella have the worst posture onstage.

But all of this adds up to a kind of artlessness in them. Their hot incest (the axis of the plot) becomes not the depths of privileged decadence but a helpless continuation of nursery delights, a retreat from the demands of the sophisticated adult world. I cannot say that this is the correct reading of the play, but it is here propounded with considerable urgency. Since Leveaux and his original designer, Kenny Miller, have transposed the play, with minimal glamour, into the mid-twentieth century, it also gains new immediacy.

Which is heightened by the production's transfer from the Swan in Stratford to the Pit. Much is lost, since the Pit has not the Swan's recesses or over-stage balconies, of which this production made excellent use. But Rick Fisher's lighting gives certain scenes fresh force, and the production builds powerfully to the final horrid banquet. Not since the 1988-89 Deborah Warner Titus Andronicus has the Pit audience so shuddered.

The staging has several gems of playing—above all, Jonathan Hyde's grave and impressive Vasques. Richard Bonneville plays the fool Bergetto with model simplicity, and Guy Henry is memorable—dry, loyal and finally anguished—as his servant Poggio. Sheila Reid wittily makes Annabella's duenna Putana a salacious townmouse. Tim Mclnnerny, whom I find a wildly variable actor, is here at his best as Annabella's husband Soranzo, his nobility and passion wracking and then kindling him. The great scene between him, his new wife and Vasques is the highlight of the performance.

Saskia Reeves is as natural an Annabella as we are likely to see; almost an Annabella-next-door. The plain sincerity of her playing becomes more and more touching. As Giovanni, Cullen is an odd amalgam. He can seem a forlorn wimp, and then be lusty and intense. His voice wilts or whines and then finds a sterling firmness that drives all before it. I prefer my Jacobean tragedy to be in the high grand manner. But this account sticks in the mind.