xiphias | The Revenger's Tragedy

When we were in DC for the Marlowe plays, we went out to lunch with our friend Akiva Fox, the dramaturg for the company. Over lunch, he'd mentioned that he'd found a movie version of Thomas Middleton's (or maybe Cyril Tourneur's) play The Revenger's Tragedy. It was filmed in 2002, and put together by Alex Cox, who was the director of Sid and Nancy and Repo Man. It's set in a post-apocalyptic Liverpool, and stars Chris Eccleston as Vindici (The Revenger), Derek Jacobi as the Duke who killed Vindici's beloved, and Eddie Izzard as the Duke's son Lussurioso (The Lecher) who is trying to seduce Vindici's sister.

Okay. Let's recap. A Jacobean revenge play, set in a post-apocalyptic world, directed by Alex Cox, and starring Christopher Eccleston, Eddie Izzard, and Derek Jacobi.

It took Lis WEEKS to track down a copy in any of the libraries we are members of.

We watched it last night.

Those of you who have Netflix? Put this one on your queue. It's not one I'd watch over and over again, but it was fun, and it's definitely worth watching, at least once.

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From:

greenlily.livejournal.com

*shree*

*that's a cross between a fangrrly squee and a shriek of glee*

My extreme reaction is based largely on the fact that the plot of my favorite novel, Pamela Dean's Tam Lin is extended by/enriched by/dependent on a production of The Revenger's Tragedy that some of the novel's characters produce.

And now I'm getting a vision of Christopher Eccleston (with bleached hair, unfortunately) as a grown-up version of the novel's romantic protagonist, who plays Vindice in the play-within-a-novel. Whoahhhh /Bill and Ted.

*zips off to start a Netflix queue*

cheshyre

There are some flashback scenes to his pre-revenge-driven state, where Eccleston does have long blond hair.

But for most of the film he goes around with buzzed-off hair. [YouTube has an early scene, though it's in the wrong aspect ratio]