I do enjoy a good Jacobean tragedy, so it was a delight not only to catch a rare performance of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi at the Oxford Playhouse last week but also to discover that this student production was one of the highest order. And the director did not hesitate to lop almost an hour off the action, without any loss of credibility.

The Duchess is a story of family revenge exacted on a young widow who takes her future into her own hands by entering a form of marriage with the head of her household, Antonio, and having three children by him in as many years. The reaction of her two brothers, one a cardinal, is violent in the extreme, and by the end hardly anyone is left to tell the tale.

A highlight of this production was a superb performance by Sian Robins-Grace in the title role. She left us in no doubt as to her feelings for her man and handled her charmless brothers with grace and good humour. Even her death, a protracted and inept strangulation, had a certain elegance to it, with a rare moment of pathos when she told her maid Caricla to remember the syrup for her little boy's cold, as she was led away. Caricla herself, nicely played by Molly Davies, did not go quietly, but by now the executioners had got their act together and she, too, was left in a strangled heap.

The Duchess's two brothers combined the creepy and the hypocritical. The Cardinal (Jack Chedburn) had a lively mistress, despite his reputation for melancholy, and she met her maker thanks to a particularly nasty form of poisoning. The older brother Ferdinand (Brian McMahon, pictured with Ms Robins-Grace), who prowled around plotting for most of the early acts, was driven mad by an illness which led him to think he was a wolf.

A simple but well-proportioned set lent something of an artistic quality to the play's bloodiest moments. So a classical central arch became the frame for a Renaissance painting when Antonio and his torturers were placed motionless within it. There was also some delicate yet highly atmospheric music, provided by two performers seated on the stage, which made the play's basic premise more tolerable.

Yet the stated aim of director Titas Halder was to "make every effort to ensure that the bloody conclusion to the play is just that. Bloody, and severe". You did, Titas, you did.