Most theatregoers have at least heard of John Ford’s 17th-century incestuous tragedy ’Tis Pity She’s A Whore. A handful may have encountered his second-greatest hit The Broken Heart (revived last month at Shakespeare’s Globe) or the collaborative work The Witch Of Edmonton (seen on this RSC stage last autumn). But to call the rest of his works overlooked is putting the matter homoeopathically mildly. Matthew Dunster’s RSC staging is the first ever recorded professional production of Love’s Sacrifice, which was published in 1633.

Ford can be hit-and-miss... on this showing, he can manage both within the same line of blank verse. Tonally, the play is a hotchpotch. The main plot veers between romance and tragedy, and bounces off several Shakespearean antecedents, most notably Othello. The Duke of Pavy is goaded into jealousy regarding an affair between his wife Bianca and his closest friend Fernando; the crucial difference here is that the two are in love, but do not consummate their feelings. There are three subplots involving, respectively, a multiply unfaithful courtier, a disguise-for-love and a self-regarding twit (Matthew Kelly giving his customary good value); each is more trivial than the last, and two of them quite superfluous.

Dunster and his cast try to find a coherent way through this; their decisions are thoughtful, but in practice simply misfire. Matthew Needham’s Duke embodies the 17th-century idea of melancholy, for which Ford seems to have had a reputation; however, this puts him into a morose, dissociative fug which is a country mile away from the intensities of passion that drive the Duke to uxoricide. Jonathan McGuinness as D’Avolos, the Duke’s secretary and the play’s analogue to Iago, is too dapper and businesslike for villainy, lacking either palpable malice or suspicious oiliness. In contrast, Beth Cordingly grasps the fury and malice of the Duke’s widowed sister, and is given a decent dose of quasi-Lady Macbeth by Ford into the bargain. I always feel rather guilty when I conclude that a play such as this has been neglected for good reason, but it is inescapable in this case. One for dramatic archaeologists only, and more of a potsherd than a silver coin.
  
Written for the Financial Times.