London Theater Journal: 'The Duchess of Malfi' at Old Vic LONDON - What do you suppose she's really thinking beneath the mask of majesty? All that nonstop pomp and pageantry must feel like a straitjacket. And surely she has disturbing things on her mind at the moment - worries about her husband, for one - as her reveling subjects pay such ostentatious tribute to her. Wouldn't you just love to know what's going on inside that serene head of hers? No, not her. Not Queen Elizabeth II, though she has inspired many such questions in recent days. I arrived in London a few days too late to be a firsthand witness to the parades and parties and river flotillas that commemorated her 60 years on the throne. But I did manage to catch, just before she left town, another, livelier woman who could be said to be the prisoner of her title. Her name? The Duchess of Malfi. And should the current queen of England have chosen to spend time with this entrapped creature, embodied with genuine tragic grandeur by Eve Best in John Webster's 1613 play at the Old Vic Theater, she might have found a soul sister of sorts in a doomed Italian noblewoman of another age. Or perhaps Queen Elizabeth's thoughts would have turned to women in her family who were unlucky in love and paid a price, like her sister, Margaret, or her daughter-in-law Diana. Jamie Lloyd's thrilling production of "The Duchess of Malfi," which ended its limited run on Saturday, makes it all too clear that if you're stuck on a world stage in a royal role, you had better keep your passions to yourself. Is it only a coincidence that the Old Vic scheduled this production to coincide with the nationwide Diamond Jubilee celebrations? Written by Webster when memories of the first Queen Elizabeth and her sacrifices to the state were still fresh, "The Duchess of Malfi" achieves a thrilling new immediacy in Mr. Lloyd's interpretation. Can't it please be reincarnated soon, ideally in New York? Not that this rising young director resorts to weary postmodernist tricks of dragging a centuries-old classic into a present of cellphones, tabloid journalism and television screens. On the contrary, as designed by Soutra Gilmour, this "Duchess" is set firmly in its period. The deep stage at the Old Vic has been transformed into a three-tiered set like a Gothic cathedral; like a tomb, it echoes with intimations of both eternity and decay. The inhabitants of this sepulchral, candle-lighted world step out of shadows amid clouds of incense. And whether they be rough soldiers, stately churchmen or genteel ladies, they are all wearing Venetian-style masks as they advance toward us in ceremonial procession. They scarcely seem mortal, these exotic creatures. But observe that one woman stands taller than the others in her handsome, floor-brushing gown. The strong light behind her reveals the silhouette of a woman's naked body beneath the form-concealing dress. The lady is definitely made of flesh and blood. More's the pity, for that will be the undoing of the Duchess of Malfi, who presumes to fall in love with her own steward (Tom Bateman, a worthy lust object) and to marry him in secret. With these opening images, beautifully underscored by James Farncombe's lighting and Ben and Max Ringham's music, Mr. Lloyd establishes a visual vocabulary that matches Webster's stark poetry of paradoxes. T.S. Eliot memorably wrote that Webster was always conscious of "the skull beneath the skin." This "Duchess" expertly insists that we never forget its existence or that of the bodies beneath the robes and the faces behind the masks. Indeed, I have never seen a production of any Jacobean tragedy that is so fully imbued, on so many levels, with a sense of duplicity, of doubleness. I mean not only the hypocrisy of state and church, embodied by the Duchess's conniving brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal (Harry Lloyd and Finbar Lynch, in juicy and credible performances), but also the more far-reaching dichotomies of appearance and reality, of shadow and substance, of the spiritual and the physical, that are also always in play. It seems appropriate that the plot's major agent of change, the hired assassin Bosola, should be such an ambivalent figure. Portrayed with rough magic by Mark Bonnar, he is utterly of his corrupt world and also contemptuous of it. He lives as he must in this moment, in this place, but it sickens him to do so. As with all well-told stories, this one doesn't let you linger too much on its conceptual aspect while you're watching. It's only afterward that you realize how seamlessly its presentation has matched its theme. The production moves with such involving momentum that even its notoriously grisly coups de théâtre (severed hand and waxwork corpses) and far-fetched instances of mistaken identity seem not only feasible but also natural in this world of perfumed pestilence and intrigue. As for Ms. Best, a great London stage star who has been seen on Broadway in revivals of "A Moon for the Misbegotten" and "The Homecoming," her Duchess is the most compelling contradiction of all. She is clearly accustomed to command, and there's arrogance in her carriage. Having to bend to seduce Mr. Bateman's character doesn't come easily to her. And living with the privileges of her title has made her cocky and careless; she believes that her stature is an all-concealing veil. But what ultimately makes this Duchess more than human is, strangely enough, her great humanity. Subjected to some of the nastiest forms of psychological torture in literature, Ms. Best's Duchess seems to shed her courtly mannerisms and become a figure of centered, radiant naturalness. And she brings to the acceptance of her death the grand, inspiring resignation we associate with Shakespeare's tragic heroes. Nonetheless she doesn't die easily, as is evidenced by the graphic, protracted scene of her murder. On the edge of extinction, she blazes. Had Queen Elizabeth II seen Ms. Best's performance she might well have approved of this triumph of the true majestic mettle that was always beneath the glitter.