For many years, John Webster’s The
Duchess of Malfi (1612) has been my favorite
theatrical work.  I discovered the play by
accident, due to my childhood interest in
werewolf lore and lycanthropy, in a book titled
The Werewolf Delusion, by Ian Woodward.  A
section of the book regarding lycanthropy in
literature featured a photo from a 70’s
London production of The Duchess of Malfi
depicting Duke Ferdinand strangling The
Duchess.  I immediately sought the play out
and was immediately drawn in by Webserâ
€™s uncompromising autopsy of the darkest
side of vengeance, imprisonment and murder.  
The mentally ill and incestuous Duke
Ferdinand became the character that I had
always sought to portray and I vowed one day
to produce The Duchess of Malfi as a feature
film.

On January 15th, 2005 we are shooting a
16mm version of a selection of Act III, scene
ii in The International Museum of Surgical
Science’s “Hall of Immortal’s�
statuary.  The purpose of this film is to submit
in conjunction with a proposal to obtain the
funds needed to produce The Duchess of
Malfi as a 35mm feature. The play has had
countless stage incarnations over several
centuries, as well as an audio performance on
Caedmon records in 1966 and as a 1972
feature.
The 1966 Caedmon 3 LP set
The "Hall of Immortals" at the IMSS
BACK
PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Stylistically we are working from several
metaphors in a hyperrealist and surreal
context: imprisonment, hidden wantonness,
sexual obsession, cannibalism and murderous
fury.

These factors are encompassed in an
appropriate quotation from Antonin Artaudâ
€™s The Theatre and Its Double, which
illustrates the spine of the play:

“Like hidden rage, the deadliest plague
does not show its symptoms.�

The style will also reflect a modified period
with period dress and settings which are an
embodiment of the subtextual intentions of
the characters within.

Malfi is a prison.  Malfi is suffering sans
gain --sans redemption.  We are all in its
court. We are all its hapless courtiers,
flowing from the head of a poisoned fountain.
NEWS
May 20th 2005

The film is finished!!  Copies are available by
contact us via email. Thanks to everyone
involved in its production.  I look forward to
the next project, which is upcoming in June.  
Details TBA!

I have this night digg'd up a mandrake
              and am grown mad with it..

--Benjamin Capps
Rehearsal photo by Nicole Burchfield