‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore

Stuff that happens before the play

• Giovanni returns from years of studying at the university in Bologna, Italy to his home in Parma with his tutor, Friar Bonaventura.

stuff that happens during the play

• Giovanni boldly and unapologetically reveals his incestuous love for his sister, Annabella, to Friar Bonaventura, while Friar urges Giovanni to repent.
• Annabella’s father, Florio, reconfirms his approval of Soranzo to marry Annabella by breaking up a fight between Soranzo’s Spanish servant, Vasquez, and a rival suitor, Grimaldi, who is a Roman nobleman and kinsmen of the Cardinal.
• Annabella and her nurse, Putana, discuss the suitors attempting to woo Annabella, including the foolish Bergetto (nephew of Donado, a friend of Annabella’s father).
• Giovanni tells Annabella of his “hidden flames” for her; she reciprocates his passion by saying: “Love me, or kill me, brother.” Giovanni replies, “Let’s learn to court in smiles, to kiss, and sleep.”
• Florio, meanwhile, encourages his friend Donado that Bergetto may still win Annabella: “if she like your nephew, let him have her.”
• Soranzo’s mistress, Hippolita, refuses to accept his rejection and vows: “my vengeance shall give comfort to this woe.”
• Hippolita’s husband, Richardetto (who is rumored to have died seeking his orphaned niece Philotis), returns to Parma disguised as a doctor while Philotis, meets Annabella and befriends the foolish Bergetto.
• Annabella rejects Donado’s proposal that she marry his nephew Bergetto.
• Soranzo comes to court Annabella and she falls ill. Putana realizes that Annabella is pregnant; Giovanni tells the Friar; the Friar advises Annabella to accept Soranzo by painting a vivid picture of hell; she agrees to break off relations with Giovanni.
• Wedding plans, murderous plots, and bloody ends ensue.

Ain’t That a shame

You could hardly find a more telling comparison between the last decade of the England of Elizabeth and the England of Charles I than Romeo and Juliet (1595) and ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1633). In many ways John Ford’s play is a homage to Shakespeare’s play about young lovers. Here we have the restless, love-struck young man whose ardor is matched by the young woman he’s in love with. Here we have the beautiful words of love. Here we have the priest who is the young man’s confidante. Here we have the meddling nurse who cheers on the young girl. Here we have the young girl forced to wed someone other than her lover.

There’s one big difference: in Ford’s play, the lovers Giovanni and Annabella are brother and sister.

Does this mean that John Ford was trying to make a familiar plot more sensational? Well, sure. But the play does not wallow in that part of the story. In fact, it draws its strength from an indictment of the corrupt society around the two incestuous lovers. Yes, the beginning of the play shocks us with the commencement of this taboo alliance, but an odd thing happens as the play unravels: in a world of corruption, cruelty, and hypocrisy – the brother and sister become the most sympathetic characters on stage.

While Shakespeare lets the world revolve around Romeo and Juliet, Ford brings into ever more focus his play’s other characters and their stories. Everyone is flawed. Annabella’s suitor’s, for example, include Grimaldi, who is quite willing to murder his rivals; Soranzo, who is in an adulterous affair; and Bergetto, who is a rather wonderful idiot. Each of their stories is itself a little play, each is attached to other stories, and all the stories intertwine as the play moves to its ghastly and entertaining conclusion.

And at the heart of the play is a changed worldview from the one that informs Romeo and Juliet. That earlier play’s sense of tragedy comes in part from the feeling that the only obstacles to love and happiness for the young couple are a silly feud and bad timing. The world is still a spacious and hopeful place.

By contrast, the world of Ford’s play is constricted and cynical. The title of the play gives us a taste of that cynicism. Ford did not call his play Giovanni and Annabella; he gave it a title that does not even bother to name Annabella, a title with two weary contractions in five short words. ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore is a phrase that seems like the casual comment of a gossip about to move on to another subject, as if to say, after a story of doomed incest, adultery, multiple murders, and evisceration, “Ain’t that a shame.”

That tone is what gives this play its moral weight and makes us relish – even in the forbidden love of Giovanni and Annabella – the echo of Shakespeare’s more innocent “death-marked love.”

ralph alan cohen

Executive Director