The Changeling

Following on from the very successful May production of The Duchess of Malfi, we present Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling, first licensed for performance in 1622 with the first recorded performance in 1624. It takes place in Alicante in Spain (as imagined by these two English playwrights). The domineering Duke Vermandero has a marriageable daughter Beatrice-Joanna, who, newly betrothed to the noble Alonzo de Piracquo sees another man she fancies more, the upstanding Alsemero. She gets the man she loathes, the ugly Deflores, to sort things out, promising money. But Deflores has other ideas of payment. Meanwhile, in another part of town at the lunatic asylum run by Alibius and his helper Lollio, two nobles from Vermandero’s castle have had themselves admitted, one as a madman, the other as a fool, to get to Isabella, the desirable wife of Alibius. Virginity tests, dancing fools and madmen, severed fingers, nocturnal burnings, a vengeful sister, a tempted wench, and a faithful friend, join in a tale of Lust, Love, Betrayal and Murder played out to the denouément, where all is uncovered and all is revealed – in blood and death.