+353 Presents: The Revenger’s Tragedy

Peacock stage, Abbey Theatre

★★★☆☆

There is an undeniable swagger to Lussurioso, the confidently seductive playboy heir from The Revenger’s Tragedy, Thomas Middleton’s 17th-century thriller. He doesn’t sound unlike a modern-day player: “I am one of that number can defend / Marriage as good … yet rather keep a friend.”

Middleton’s debauched, violently graphic play can feel surprisingly breezy in Kevin Keogh’s adaptation, as if injected with new attitude. Lussurioso is played by the cheekily grinning Andrew Ajetunmobi, who’s also known – relevantly, in this drill-music-infused version – as the rapper Bless.

[ The Revenger’s Tragedy: ‘I love the idea that there’s a Jacobean revenge tragedy inside each bedroom rapper’s head’Opens in new window ]

When the avenger Vindice (Alexander Potgieter, aka Awkward Z) infiltrates Lussurioso’s court as payback for his fiancée’s murder, it sets in motion a series of schemes and disguises identities.

Keogh makes Middleton’s play surprisingly spry, but the original’s heavy soul-search nudges back. As Vindice, Potgieter is required to depict a self-torment not unlike Hamlet’s, a chasm of emotion that the production’s striking music (composed by Colin Fitzpatrick, Samuel Mark and Ire Adebari) cannot quite bridge.

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Only towards the end, when Vindice and Lussurioso circle each other, does the production allow for its performers’ strength: Potgieter’s avenger finally gets to rap – the duke thinks “my outward shape and inward heart are cut out of one piece (for he that prates his secrets, his heart stands on the outside)”. It isn’t a rhyme, but Potgieter leans in, with immaculate timing and attitude.

A surprise intervention by the anthropologist Dr Dawn-Elissa Fischer frames drill music as articulating the voices of the marginalised. It’s unclear, however, what periphery Keogh’s adaptation inhabits. Potgieter’s Vindice gets original verses at the end – “I was 15 with a pending case. / We found where the ops were based. / I swing my arm, try to cut his face” – but it’s revenge that isn’t allowed to fully surface.

Runs at the Abbey Theatre, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, until Saturday, September 13th