'Tis Pity...really.

In round two of "Marlo, Emily & Laura hit the town," we went to see John Ford's rarely performed revenge tragedy, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, last night. If you're not familiar with Ford, don't get scared by the title...well, I take that back. It's a pretty disturbing play--but, not in the way you might think. Granted there's eye gauging and conniving secretly-Spanish servants and a bloody still-beating heart (and did I mention the incest??), but it really is--in theory--quite good. Sadly, we decided to take our chances with the local theater scene, hoping above hopes that it's England after all and this is where theater should be good everywhere, in a permeating-the-English-genetic-pool kind of way. Oh, and did I mention we walked two miles to get there? Yeah.

The program should have been our tell-tale sign. First, the director proudly brandished the fact that they put this together in a mere 39 days when it would normally take several months. Second, the group of actors became a company. Note: after they started rehearsing for the play. Third, and the biggest clue, this was to be a perfect blend of amateur and professional actors. Um, amateur??!?? Ok, now I'm feeling guilty. This was the problem actually: a constant pull and tug from being slightly horrified to feeling guilty for being horrified and turning instead to feeling proud of them for doing it, but really just embarrassed in a only-a-relative-could-sit-through-this-and-smile kind of way.

To understand how we felt afterward, take a look at Marlo's dramatic reinactment pictured above, in which she poses with the program for the play, all while Emily empathizes with her pain.