The problem with most pre-Shakespearean comedies, and some Shakespearean comedies, is that notions of sexual consent and what constitutes violence against women weren’t all that well developed yet. So there’s a part of me that wants to write, “This is a play about sexual violence against an innocent woman, basically, except it’s supposed to be funny, and the woman is barely in it.” That is TRUE. Lucrezia, the female whose love and chastity is at the center of this play, is coerced by her husband, her priest, and her would be “lover” into a sexual union she doesn’t want and even protests will kill her. From the point of that declaration, she essentially has no voice until the final scene, when she’s been brought miraculously around to the arrangement by the prowess of her lover.
So – it’s hard to talk about such a play in terms of my reaction to it. In terms of the form, it is a well-crafted example of the Italian comedy – more enjoyable in certain ways than some of Moliere’s work 100 years later. It is lyrical and well-paced, even in the literal translation I read. It’s a very good play to study, and I’m glad I read it. But essentially, I think it has little place on the modern stage, and we’d do better working with Shakespearean problem plays like All’s Well that Ends Well which complicate the questions of consent and female rights, lending themselves to more nuanced and modern performances.
90 Days, 90 Plays 