Edward II/Tamburlaine
Shakespeare Theater Company
Washington, D.C.
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(202) 547-1122
***
The Shakespeare Theater Company chose an odd way to inaugurate its ravishing new theater, said Charles Isherwood in The New York Times. The D.C. institution scheduled a festival dedicated not to plays of the Bard but of his contemporary Christopher Marlowe, “whose checkered career and mysterious death have somewhat overshadowed his dramatic oeuvre.” This is a brave but quixotic move. While Marlowe wrote poetry of undeniable beauty, “he does not hold the stage today as smoothly as Shakespeare.” The production here of Edward II, a portrayal of scandal and intrigue at the court of a homoerotically inclined English king, is entertaining enough. But the stilted take on Tamburlaine, the playwright’s fanciful account of the 14th-century Scythian conqueror, merely convinces us that Marlowe’s play “is better read than said.”
Marlowe’s vision for Tamburlaine is almost too much for one stage, said Jayne Blanchard in The Washington Times. The low-born Tamburlaine rises to power and leads his army to victory over one neighboring kingdom after another. When faced with the inevitable consequences of his imperial overreach, he angrily vows to overthrow the gods themselves. Director Michael Kahn tries to pack all of Marlowe’s action and high rhetoric into one Cecil B. DeMille–like set. “This is the kind of show where not one, but two characters dash their brains out on the bars of a cage,” and others die by means of magical potions “or being strung up in the town square and pierced by fusillades of arrows.” But many important scenes have an oddly formal feel, while “the excesses and high-blown language are sometimes unexpectedly comic.”
You have to admire Avery Brooks’ performance in the “positively exhausting” role of Tamburlaine himself, said Peter Marks in The Washington Post. “That he gets through it at all is an achievement.” But Tamburlaine ultimately feels like homework, while Edward II “proves a far more enjoyable evening.” Director Gale Edwards shifts the action from the 1300s to the 1920s, decking out the English court in Jazz Age finery. Edward turns out to be not just another evil king but a familiar contemporary figure—a leader undone by a relationship with another man. Wallace Acton is heart-rending as the besotted king, while Vayu O’Donnell excels as his conniving French boy-toy. Their riveting performances help prove that Edward II belongs “in the canon of kingly tragedies that deserve to be recounted more often.”
The Glorious Ones
Lincoln Center Theater, New York
(212) 239-6200
★★
The best comedy doesn’t try too hard, said Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal. That’s the charm of the new musical by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, which purports to show the origins of commedia dell’arte, “the barnstorming outdoor theatrical troupes of 16th-century Italy whose bawdy improvised farces left a lasting mark on the later history of comedy.” A loose collection of skits introduces us to a strolling band of rustic players, led by the flamboyant Flaminio Scala, who is played hilariously by Marc Kudisch. (Natalie Venetia Belcon, and Julyana Soelistyo are similarly outstanding as members of the seven-actor troupe.) The humor can be low and even lewd, but the human relationships always remain realistic. It doesn’t hurt that Flaherty has written one of the best new scores in recent years. The Glorious Ones isn’t particularly ambitious, but one of the great things about it is that it “makes no effort whatsoever to impress.”
It also makes no effort to make sense, said Michael Feingold in The Village Voice. The script is filled with “lamebrained historical inaccuracy,” but that wouldn’t matter so much if there were a single decent scene or character. The talented cast “seems to be constantly pouring its energy into a void,” as the script fails to capture any of the improvisatory energy of actual commedia dell’arte. “The old jokes fall flat, with a limp thud of earnestness.” Kudisch, a performer with the looks, voice, and skill to be a classic Broadway leading man, deserves better than this. So do audiences.
If/Then