'Tis Pity She's a Whore

Like Shakespeare's Juliet, Annabella, accompanied by her down-to-earthnurse, is introduced to a series of suitors to her hand. Like Juliet,she finds all of them unsatisfactory - and rightly so, for the audienceknow that the nastiest of them is having an affair with her domineeringaunt. Like Juliet, Annabella is wooed by a sensitive and passionateyoung man whose love she returns - but this young man happens to be herown brother, Giovanni. When they consummate their love and she, toavoid the scandal of extramarital pregnancy, agrees to marry her aunt'slover, the tragic outcome is inevitable. John Ford, writing hispsychologically powerful and intellectually challenging tragedies inthe early years of King Charles I's reign, is a playwright of the firstrank, as 20th-century directors have shown both in the theatre and onfilm.