Edward the Second

Edward the Second

By Christopher Marlowe

Edited by Mathew R. Martin

Broadview Editions, 2010

ISBN: 9781551119106

This excellent edition of Marlowe’s incendiary play is based on the quarto published in 1594, a year or so after the playwright’s death.

Besides the text of the play itself, extensively annotated by Mathew R. Martin, there are a number of appendices, focusing on such topics as the office of king, the law relating to sodomy, friendship (or ‘amity’, a pretty word) between men, and Marlowe’s historical sources.

What’s extraordinary about the play is that it is quite clearly – explicitly and unapologetically – about what we’d now call a gay relationship between two men, Edward and his favourite or minion (a recurring word throughout), Gaveston.  In the very first scene, for example, Gaveston is excited to return to the capital:

The sight of London to my exiled eyes

Is as Elysium to a new come soul.  1:10-11

Why?  Only because:

…it harbours him I hold so dear,

 The king, upon whose bosom let me die…  1:14-15

To die means, of course, to come: he can’t wait to get it on.  And there’s a robust defence of the legitimacy of love between men somewhat later in the play (Scene 4, lines 390-400), which is not exactly what you would expect to see in a play first performed in sixteenth century England.  But Marlowe, famously, was of the opinion ‘that all they that love not tobacco and boys were fools.’

Edward’s boyfriend is despised by the barons, since Gaveston is not only queer and a rival and a beguiling influence on the king; he is also of low birth and therefore base.  And in time their rancour escalates into an all-out civil war.  There’s a lot of violent action, dastardly intrigue and sinister incident; and there’s a malice, a diabolical glee almost, to much of Marlowe’s language too.  It’s like a gangster film, only when guys are whacked – whether a baron or one of the king’s men – they’re beheaded too.  It’s The Sopranos, medieval style (Edward the Second ruled from 1307-1327).

The editor writes that Edward the Second influenced Shakespeare’s history plays (and in particular Richard the Second) and there is clearly a kinship to Macbeth too.  Not least in the character of Lightborn (compare with Seyton in the Scottish play) and the bathetic manner in which the deaths of Edward and Lady Macduff are treated: the grandeur of those about to die, the pettiness of their respective murderers.  The body count’s comparable as well.

I saw Edward the Second at the Royal Exchange in September (here’s that review) and this fine edition of the play, ably edited and prepared by Mathew R. Martin, confirms me in my conviction of its greatness.

The publisher’s description of Edward the Second can be read here.

Edward II

Edward II

By Christopher Marlowe

Royal Exchange Theatre, 12 September 2011

Photo by Jonathan Keenan

An excellent production of one of Marlowe’s less well known plays.

The decision to foreground the ‘pure’ aspect of the play (to use the Elizabethan term) yet to set it in the 1950s (when gay relationships were still somewhat clandestine) is an interesting one, but fits in with the overriding theme.  That theme can be expressed as the constriction of freedom and desire.   Edward is a king constricted by duty and obligation, then later made mad by the loss of his lover and office, the frustration of his desires.  To Marlowe – and to his contemporaries too, no doubt – a king was not an ordinary man and could not live like one.  It was unbearable for such a one to be subject to his peers.

Chris New in the title role was splendid, especially in the latter half of the play when things heated up.  As well, Jolyon Coy as his nemesis Mortimer and Samuel Collings as his Ganymede, a certain Gaveston, caught the eye.

So we have yet another heady mix of infernal murders, cruel betrayals and injurious hubris from the pen of young Mr. Marlowe.  As always, the value he places on freedom and ambition make it all worthwhile.

Edward II is at the Royal Exchange Theatre until 8 October, further details are here.

Doctor Faustus @ the Royal Exchange Theatre

Doctor Faustus
By Christopher Marlowe
Royal Exchange Theatre, 13 September 2010

Patrick O'Kane as Faustus and Coral Messam as Helen Of Troy. Photo - Jonathan Keenan

An atmospheric production of Marlowe’s great play.

The air is dark and dense with damnation; indeed, you can almost smell the sulphur.  Patrick O’Kane is stupendously good in the lead role.  Faustus is the guy who wants easy answers to big questions, the plonker who just isn’t prepared to put the work in.  He wants too much, and is the very model of Elizabethan ambition.

It is hardly surprising, then, that his thirst for knowledge gradually turns into a love of power and a need for pleasure; and that it achieves only a puerile prankishness.  What began as a noble enterprise ends with squalor and high jinks.

He had an eventful innings, mind, this far-from-being-good doctor.

It is quite wonderfully staged, this production: the encroachment of Lucifer and her (sic) minions gives the strong sense that this world is a mere peeling facade.  The Temptress and her tenebrous swarm of invaders are harbingers, shadows that mingle and gather before the darkness finally falls.  And soon enough, for Faustus, there will be only darkness.

Doctor Faustus is at the  Royal Exchange Theatre until 9 October.  Details here.