With a title like Tis Pity She's a Whore who wouldn't read this play by John Ford? As with many Jacobean plays I find it difficult to tell if it is a tragedy or a comedy in the first act. It starts with a brother confessing to a friar his more than filial love to for his sister, and then arguing with that friar. Kind of comedic, I thought? I was looking forward to a light hearted romp about incest, because anything seems possible for the Jacobeans. So this brother tells his sister about his burning passion and she says, "ME TOO!" Well, moving to the next act she gets pregnant and people start to die. So much for the light hearted romp. Then the sister marries someone else and the brother gets jealous and kills her. So like any sane person he advertises his crime by walking around with her heart on the end of his sword telling all of his crimes of incest and murder. He then kills her husband and tries to have a go at anyone else at the party (Her wedding ceremony).
There are some side stories as well, one concerning a character of such dimwitedness that he was pure comedy. He would always go on about a horse with two heads for show in the circus, quite funny...but he was accidentally killed in a terrible assassination plot. But the best line came from him describing his mortal wound,
"I am sure I cannot piss forward and backward, and yet I am wet before and behind."
By that point I knew it was definitely a tragedy.
What a movie this would make! Hopefully, the title wouldn't be changed and they wouldn't update the setting.
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