by MARK GABRISH CONLAN
Copyright © 2011 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s
Newsmagazine • All rights reserved
It was probably
only a matter of time before Diversionary Theatre, San Diego’s quarter-century
old company specializing in Queer-themed plays, produced what is possibly the
first “Gay play” in the modern sense of the term, Christopher Marlowe’s Edward
II. Marlowe, born in Canterbury, England in
1564 — just two months before William Shakespeare’s birth in Stratford-on-Avon
— died at age 29 in Deptford, ostensibly in a tavern brawl with four drinking
buddies, one of whom was tried and acquitted on the ground of self-defense.
The story was
almost certainly a cover-up. At the time of his death Marlowe was under
indictment for homosexuality and atheism, both of which were capital crimes in
Elizabethan England, and one of his boyfriends was Thomas Walsingham, son of
the first cousin of Sir Francis Walsingham, who headed the intelligence service
that was essentially Queen Elizabeth’s CIA. Thomas Kyd, a mediocre playwright
whose works drew bigger audiences than either Marlowe’s or Shakespeare’s (so
what else is new?), had himself been arrested for atheism and, being
interrogated under torture, fingered Marlowe. Hugh Ross Williamson, in his 1972
historical novel Kind Kit, suggested
that Sir Francis Walsingham had four of his agents kill Marlowe and fake it to
look like a brawl in order to keep the case from coming to trial and
embarrassing him and his Queen.
All of which is
offered here merely to point out that in writing Edward II — the story of a more or less openly Gay 14th
Century King of England who neglected his wife, Isabella (daughter of King
Philip IV of France), for his boyfriend Piers Gaveston, then took up with
another young man, Hugh Despenser the Younger (called simply “Young Spenser” in
the play), antagonizing many of the noblemen as well as the Church and
ultimately sparking a brutal civil war, his murder and his son’s accession to
the throne — Marlowe was writing what he knew. Reflecting his intellectual
training — he was a graduate of Cambridge University — Marlowe’s plays, like Shaw’s and Brecht’s, tended
to be more social and political lessons rather than character studies, and his
writing usually lacked the humanity and depth of Shakespeare’s. Not Edward
II, though; in what was either the last or
next-to-last (scholars differ) of his seven surviving plays, Marlowe created
richly drawn, complex characters in a poetic language whose beauty and scope
rivals Shakespeare’s.
Edward II begins in 1307, when the title character becomes
king on the death of his father, Edward I, during a war against Scotland.
(Edward II took over the war and led the English army to a major defeat at
Bannockburn in 1314; the war isn’t depicted in Marlowe’s play but is dramatized
from a pro-Scottish point of view in Mel Gibson’s film Braveheart.) He immediately sends for his partner Gaveston, whom
Edward I had banished to his native Gascony (a French province the English were
essentially renting from them), scandalizing the nobles with their open affair
and the wild parties they threw at court.
The play is a
rapid-fire series of scenes alternating between Edward and the nobles —
particularly Mortimer, their leader (Marlowe wrote two characters named
Mortimer, the younger being the older’s nephew, but Diversionary’s director
Richard Baird, also credited with adapting the play, fused them into one) — as
they get him to exile Gaveston again, Gaveston sneaks away, the nobles catch
him and one of them murders him, Edward starts a civil war which he wins and orders all his
enemies executed, but Mortimer escapes. Later he and Edward’s rejected Queen
Isabella flee to France and raise an army to take over; the plot succeeds, and
Edward is forced to abdicate in favor of his son Edward III, a teenager
Mortimer and Isabella think they can easily control.
Edward is
ultimately murdered — Marlowe’s script doesn’t say exactly how, but Baird’s
staging seizes on hints in the script and depicts Edward being killed with a
red-hot poker thrust up his anus (a legend that took hold because medieval
moralists thought that was a fitting punishment for a Gay king) — but the new
king, Edward III, denounces his mother and Mortimer for the murders of his
father and his uncle Edmund. Though the script doesn’t specify what happens
next, Marlowe’s original audience would have known it: Edward III became one of
England’s greatest kings, reigned for 50 years and with his son, Edward the
Black Prince, came close to conquering France.
One thing that
may surprise modern viewers about Edward II
is that it makes clear just how little power medieval monarchs actually had.
The day of royals who were absolute dictators — like “Sun King” Louis XIV of
France, who proclaimed, “L’etat c’est moi!” (“I am the state!”) — was at least three centuries in the future when
Edward reigned. Medieval kings were hamstrung by their dependence on the feudal
nobility — whom they relied on for both taxes and military forces — and on the
church, which had the power to condemn an entire country as sinners and thereby
encourage attacks from outside by telling the attackers they were doing God’s
work. The conflicts between king and nobles, and between king and church — “Why
must a king be subject to a priest?” Edward rages in one of the most famous
lines in the play (and one of striking relevance today!) — are vividly staged
in Marlowe’s script, Baird’s adaptation and Diversionary’s production.
Diversionary’s Edward
II vividly brings Marlowe’s play to life,
and the real heroes are Richard Baird and Ross Hellwig, who stars as the king
(and is the only Actors’ Equity member in the cast). Baird’s fast-moving
adaptation keeps the story going, pushes the actors to spit the lines out so
fast they sound like their normal mode of speech, and sometimes brings on one
set of characters while another is still on stage to avoid the pauses between
scenes that make many productions of Elizabethan drama dull. Though there are
times early on in which Hellwig acts so effeminate you wonder whether he’s
playing England’s king or queen, he soon settles into an authoritative reading
of the role that makes the character believable and turns the play into a tour
de force for him.
Not that this is
a one-star drama; the program lists 29 characters and they are played by 15
actors, the largest cast Diversionary has ever assembled for anything. The play
opens with a vivid entrance by Dangerfield Moore as Gaveston, oozing dangerous
sexuality (he’s the only male who’s allowed to show a basket, a neat touch by
costume designer Howard Schmitt) and leaving us no doubt why Edward is in such
thrall to this man that he’s willing to give up virtually everything for him.
The conspirators are led by John Polak as Roger Mortimer, who may or may not
have been Queen Isabella’s adulterous lover (in Marlowe’s script, as adapted by
Baird, he wants to be but she rejects
him), and they include Warwick (Jeff Anthony Miller, who’s also credited with
“fight choreography”), Leicester and Pembroke (both played by Reed Willard).
Mortimer, as played by Polak, is a properly oily S.O.B. and the others deliver
finely honed performances, reflecting the subtle differences between them in
terms of how far they’re willing to go against a legitimate king.
Alexandra Grossi
as Isabella appears a bit too edgy in her early speeches — methinks her laments
at having lost the king’s love to a man (“For now my lord the king regards me
not/But dotes upon the love of Gaveston”) should be played more in sorrow than
in anger — but perhaps she and Baird chose this way to make it more credible
when she re-emerges as a driven revenge figure in the second half. Towards the
end, some of the doublings in the cast do
start to strain credibility. Jim “Doc” Coates gets to play three older men —
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the father of Spenser (Edward’s last male lover)
and Lightborn, the hired assassin brought in to kill Edward — and he’s good in
all his roles but it’s a little hard to take as this distinctive actor first
opposes Edward, then is on his side and finally does him in. And Miller’s
doubled role as Matrevis, one of Mortimer’s executioners, seems just a little
too much like Boris Karloff’s Mord in Tower of London (Universal’s 1939 film of the Richard III story) for
comfort.
Still,
Diversionary’s Edward II is for the most
part impeccably acted and grippingly staged. The Elizabethan theatre wasn’t big
on scenery — Diversionary’s scenic designer, Matt Scott, wisely avoided
elaborate sets and staged the action in front of large, dowdy-looking hanging
curtains whose period looked more or less right — but its actors wore elaborate
costumes and there were surprisingly convincing special effects. Baird and
“fight choreographer” Miller don’t go as far as they would have in Marlowe’s
time, in which the actors frequently wore bladders filled with pig’s blood so
they would bleed on cue when stabbed, but the murders are not only utterly
credible but also surprisingly gory for live theatre.
Howard Schmitt’s
costume designs create a quite convincing picture of the Middle Ages, and —
praise be — the costumes themselves look worn enough to be believable as real
clothing worn by people in everyday life. (One slip-up is Edward’s crown, a
plastic souvenir-shop knickknack that’s totally illusion-shattering.) As prop
designer, David Medina mainly seemed to have to come up with credible weapons —
the swords are metal and make a satisfying clank when the actors fence with
each other — and the wash basin in which Edward and Gaveston dunk the head of
one of those unwelcome priests also looks right. Kevin Anthenill provided
original music as well as doing the sound design, and for once it was nice to
hear an Elizabethan drama scored with instruments other than trumpets and drums.
It’s nice to see
Diversionary Theatre celebrating its 25th anniversary with a
pioneering work of Queer theatre like Edward II. Their production is certainly superior to Derek Jarman’s
self-indulgent film from 1991 — of which Diversionary is doing a special
screening Tuesday, September 20, 7:30 p.m. — done largely in modern dress,
which inexplicably turned Edward II into a Queer Nation activist leading a
ragtag flock against a line of riot police. (imdb.com lists two other films of Edward
II, both made for TV, and the 1970 BBC
version — with a young Ian McKellen as Edward — would probably be worth
seeing.) For Richard Baird’s direction, vivid and well-acted performances in
the leads, and an overall approach that takes Marlowe’s drama out of the
academy and turns it into visceral, exciting entertainment, Diversionary’s Edward
II is not to be missed.
Edward II is playing through Sunday, October 2 at
Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Boulevard in University Heights. Performances
are 7:30 Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. For
tickets and other information, call (619) 220-0097 or visit
www.diversionary.org
