Spectacle and Female Power: The Duchess of Malfi in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

In 2014, Dominic Dromgoole’s production of The Duchess of Malfi offered the Globe an opportunity to explore the ways in which theatrical intimacy, early modern lighting technology and dramaturgical spectacle could exploit and unearth the performance and meaning-making potential of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Webster’s play raises theatrical challenges that the new indoor playhouse could feasibly and creatively test. This article examines the ways in which the theatrical viability of the Playhouse architecture, its aesthetics and the special effects it enables raised the dramaturgical and thematic stakes of Webster’s most famous tragedy and one of drama’s most famous heroines.