John Ford: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore

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New Mermaids is a series of over sixty modernised and fully annotated classic plays, with an active program of new editions. New Mermaids are edited and updated by experienced teachers who are internationally recognised as authorities in their field. They are ideal for, and accessible to, actors, theatre-goers and students and are printed in a clear, easy-to-use format, with annotations below the text and a comprehensive introduction. 

Like Shakespeare's Juliet, Annabella, accompanied by her down-to-earth nurse, is introduced to a series of suitors to her hand. Like Juliet, she finds all of them unsatisfactory – and rightly so, for the audience know that the nastiest of them is having an affair with her domineering aunt. Like Juliet, Annabella is wooed by a sensitive and passionate young man whose love she returns – but this young man happens to be her own brother, Giovanni. When they consummate their love and she, to avoid the scandal of extramarital pregnancy, agrees to marry her aunt's lover, the tragic outcome is inevitable.

John Ford, writing his psychologically powerful and intellectually challenging tragedies in the early years of King Charles I's reign, is a playwright of the first rank, as twentieth century directors have shown both in the theatre and on film.