Theatre in Review: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (Red Bull Theater/The Duke n 42nd Street)"That marriage seldom's good/Where the bride banquet so begins in blood." In summing up John Ford's blood-soaked tragedy, you can't do much better than to quote from the text itself. Even among the Jacobean playwrights, whose frank exploitation of sex and violence was elevated by only by the majesty of their language, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore remains a shocker even today. How many modern playwrights would dare to present an incestuous brother and sister as the most innocent characters on stage? Giovanni and Annabella are the sexually attracted siblings, and, once they express their feelings, they can't keep their hands off of each other. One of the more fascinating aspects of the play is its relatively neutral presentation of this forbidden affair. Indeed, in one of the first scenes, Giovanni argues with Friar Bonaventura, his spiritual advisor, claiming that his feelings for Annabella are of a higher order than most romantic passions. His line of thinking is, in its way, ruthlessly logical: "Say that we had one father, say one womb/(Curse to my joys!) gave both us life and birth/Are we not therefore each to other bound/So much the more by nature, by the links/Of blood, of reason (nay, if you will have it/Even of religion, to be ever one/One soul, one flesh, one love, one heart, one all?" One of Ford's great themes was the conflict between individual desire and the conventions of society. Seeing brother and sister in post-coital embrace, one appreciates just how far he was willing to push the terms of it. Friar Bonaventura isn't alone in trying to get Annabella married off as soon as possible; her father, Signor Florio, has assembled a trio of suitors, each of whom is eager to plead his case. The no-hopers are Bergetto, an unregenerate fop, and Grimaldi, a Roman soldier, neither of whom earns a second glance from Annabella. The presumptive winner is Soranzo, a nobleman -- but any hopes that marriage to him will keep Annabella safe and scandal-free are quickly dashed, for Soranzo is the target of many a scheme: He seduced and abandoned the married Hippolita, who comes after him, seeking revenge; Hippolita thinks her husband, Richardetto, is dead, but he turns up very much alive and on the scene, keeping tabs on his wife and her ex-lover. Richardetto wasn't just cuckolded; Soranzo and Hippolita connived at sending him on a trip that was calculated to lead to his death; he convinces Grimaldi that his best bet at winning Annabella involves killing Soranzo. Got all that? It's all perfectly clear in Jesse Berger's well-spoken staging; even if doesn't always hit the deeper, darker emotions buried in the text, it is remarkably effective at elucidating the concentric circles of intrigue that entrap Giovanni and Annabella. The entire company has a fine grasp of Ford's language and of the plots and counterplots that culminate in a wedding reception where the corpses threaten to outnumber the living. Matthew Amendt's Giovanni is callow in his moral certainty, yet also oddly vulnerable, as if he senses, but cannot admit, that his love for Annabella is doomed. Amelia Pedlow gives Annabella a guileless quality that persists even when she agrees to marry Soranzo to preserve her reputation. (By then, she is pregnant by her brother, and getting pretty desperate.) There are also solid contributions from Philip Goodwin as the blissfully unaware Signor Florio; Christopher Innvar as Bonaventura, who struggles to save the lovers from themselves; Everett Quinton as Bergetto's father, fed up with his son's superficial ways; Rocco Sisto as a silken voiced, highly political Roman Catholic cardinal; and Derek Smith as the triple-dealing servant who will tell any lie to keep Soranzo, his master, alive. Among the newer faces in the cast, Ryan Garbayo is a fop's fop as Bergetto -- his post-Annabella romance with Richardetto's niece looks most unlikely, if you know what I mean -- Clifton Duncan is an imposing Soranzo, and Kelley Curran's Hippolita isn't the kind of lady whose wrong side you'd do anything to avoid. In David M. Barber's set design, the action, which is set in Parma, unfolds in a paneled room, the kind of space in which a Jacobean play might be staged when presented at, say, Oxford or Cambridge. It is, nevertheless, well outfitted for Ford's script: A pair of doors located upstage center open to reveal, among other things, a bed surrounded by votive candles, and there is also a Juliet balcony on which characters can observe the action unfolding below. It is lit with unobtrusive skill by Peter West. Sara Jean Tosetti's costumes are especially inventive in how contemporary pieces of clothing -- such as, say, a black leather jacket -- are woven into period look, creating a silhouette that is half modern, half Jacobean. John Ivy's sound design provides reinforcement for Adam Wernick's original music, along with such effects as the tolling of bells on Annabella's wedding day. The events following Annabella's wedding to Soranzo are surely a challenge to a director; so much happens, so much of it fatal, that there is the terrible risk of alienating an audience, or worse, stirring up unwanted laughter. Berger has firm control of the material, however, and the play's climax is allowed to play out in all its horror. Red Bull has distinguished itself with its Jacobean revivals; it's hard to imagine any other company in town handling this difficult subset of the classical repertory with more skill or panache. -- David Barbour 
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