Over the years the rejuvenated Swan Theatre has hosted many works by Shakespeare's contemporaries.
The City Madam (1632), by Philip Massinger, intriguingly seems to illuminate our own recent history, presenting a heady consumerist society where everyone lives on credit and everything is for sale.
Sir John's family name might be Frugal yet his wife and daughters are anything but. They revel in the conspicuous consumption afforded them by Sir John's mercantile success - Massinger skilfully depicts important societal shifts in wealth - but treat his brother Luke, recently redeemed from debtors' prison, as a skivvy. Luke pleads eloquently on behalf of other debtors but when, in a plot device reminiscent of Measure for Measure, Sir John absents himself to become a secret observer, Luke behaves very differently at the helm of the Frugal fortune.
This is an intriguing play rather than a vital one, stuttering only fitfully into full dramatic life. Luke, portrayed with sparky confidence by Jo Stone-Fewings, is a morally ambiguous mixture of truth-deliverer and pantomime villain, yet he's the nearest we get to a rounded central character.
Director Dominic Hill has fun with the Frugal ladies but the piece remains a curio.
In rep until Oct 4. Information: 0844 800 1110
The City Madam
RSC Swan
Stratford-upon-Avon
