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1st appeared 24 May 2000 NINA'S ARTS NOTES "Edward 2" -- Sexuality and Power
Although Kit Marlowe was a contemporary of Shakespeare’s -- many people will remember talk of him and his death at 29 in a barroom brawl in the movie Shakespeare in Love -- Edward II contains little or none of the arching rhythm and lyric imagery of Shakespeare’s work. Or even of Marlowe’s other plays, such as Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus. This is a blunt, savage story of power; it is the historically accurate drama of a 14th century English ruler and his downfall. It is unique among Elizabethan plays because it openly portrays physical love between men. Edward II was staged for A.C.T. by Mark Lamos, well-known theatre and opera director (most recently of the world premiere of The Great Gatsby at the Metropolitan Opera) who also provided thoughtful insights into this rarely performed play. "That homosexuality as an act, occasional or otherwise, existed in Marlowe’s time is indisputable," Lamos has written. "Edward, however, is gay; he’s queer in the modern post-20th century understanding of those terms. The socially transgressive center of his life is his passionate physical and spiritual love of men -- first Gaveston, then Spencer...I’m interested in exploring the male culture of physical beauty, love and violence in which Marlowe's play takes place." Lamos has not updated the play: the text is original, but he and dramaturge Paul Walsh have made it swifter and leaner. And the violence and sexuality of the play are expressed in both contemporary and timeless terms: four nude men on a mattress; bodies pumped up in gym and bathhouse scenes; bodies brutally violated in battles and drowned in a mudpit. There is only one woman trapped in this male power struggle: Edward’s wife Queen Isabella, played memorably by Vivienne Benesch, whom he coldly spurns. Her inevitable, implacable revenge finally comes about when she maneuvers their son, Edward III, played impressively by young Jonathan Sanders, to assert his right to the throne. The lighting by Donald Holder is a powerful dramatic element, flooding scenes with bloodred wash and creating menacing shadowplays behind the arras. In the industrially spare sets by Christopher Barreca, an elevated bridge allows action and spying on two levels. Marlowe himself was said to be a double agent, spying for Elizabeth and for Catholic France. Amid the sex and violence are moments of tenderness. "Every play is a love story," Lamos believes. Fair young Gaveston, played by the winsome Christopher Baker, is both the king’s lover and a commoner, despised by all the nobles. When young Mortimer, one of Edward’s enemies at court, asks him, "Why should you love him whom the world hates so?" the King replies, "Because he loves me more than all the world."
Malcolm Gets makes Edward II believably obsessed and later, when his lover is killed, credibly courageous in the face of his own peril and final doom. His only weakness is his voice which is too low key; his characterization would be even better if he projected more strongly. There is no denying that power and eroticism are linked in our world as closely as in that of Edward II or of Marlowe. Both irresistible drives make this play a rare experience of sheer theatre. Edward II runs through June 4 at the Geary Theater, between Mason and Taylor. Tickets at A.C.T. box office, 405 Geary at Mason, 415/749-2228, all BASS outlets, or online. A San Francisco resident for 20 years, Nina Beckwith is a longtime arts writer and music critic and a former Time magazine overseas correspondent. She was founding editor of the UC Berkeley Library newsletter Bene Legere and worked for six years with the late Dr. Peter Ostwald, Director of the UCSF Health Program for Performing Artists. |
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The
play running at A.C.T.‘s Geary Theater through June 4th is as different
from the previous House of Mirth as can be imagined. It could be called
"House of Grief:" Christopher Marlowe’s tragedy of King Edward
the Second.