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Born With Teeth starring Edward Bluemel and Ncuti Gatwa (Wyndham's Theatre, West End) - ★★★ REVIEW
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ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com if you are going to see this play simply to thirst over Anshuti Gatwa on stage, then yes, that's a fantastic way to do that and I suggest sitting in the stalls. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you're listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Micky Jo and I'm obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a professional theatre critic here on social media and today we are going to be talking about one of the West End's latest openings, which is the play Born with Teeth written by Liz Duffy Adams, co produced by the Royal Shakespeare Shakespeare Company and recently opened at the Wyndham's Theatre in London. It stars Nshuti Gatwa and Edward Blumel as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, two Elizabethan poets, playwrights and contemporaries who may have met, may have collaborated and may have had a homosexual relationship during this time. This play, for the fun of it, suggests all three taking place simultaneously with a metaphorical backdrop of Renaissance espionage and a literal backdrop of lamps. Now, I'm not a Shakespearean scholar, and we're not going to concern ourselves today necessarily with how much of this play is true or even purports to be true, but we are going to talk about whether or not it makes a good story, which is ultimately what we're looking for most of the time when we go to the theater. So I'm going to let you know about the writing, the themes, the relationship between these two characters, the performances of course, and the creative choices by this team led by director Daniel Evans. But as always, these are just my thoughts and I would love to know yours as well. If you have already seen Born with Teeth in the West End at the Wyndham's Theatre, let us all know what you thought in the comments section down below. And if you want to hear more of my thoughts and theatre reviews, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Turn on notifications so that YouTube lets you know every time I post a new video or go follow me on podcast platforms. But in the meantime, let us discuss Born with Teeth. So as I mentioned, in this play, Liz Duffy Adams brings together Elizabethan contemporaries William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlow, and this uninterrupted 90 minute performance is structurally separated into three theatrical acts which depict three different meetings of theirs set over the three years leading to Christopher Marlowe's death. This is not a spoiler alert. It's the late 16th century, but before that, and to begin with, we are setting a tone of utter piercing intensity. There is a booming soundscape and harsh bright lighting and video projections to commence the whole thing with lighting design from Neil Austin, sound design by George Dennis, and projection design from Andre Golding, with the front of the proscenium opening up in a square like pattern in Joanna Scotch's set to reveal the two authors being simultaneously interrogated, both of them restrained and one of them suspended upside down. This is only, however, a brief flash of possibility as William Shakespeare himself takes to the stage to inform us that that didn't actually happen. So what then is the purpose? Why is this the note on which we begin this play, other than to startle the entire audience just enough to spill about 100 milliliters of I'm not bitter, I am just slightly damp. The answer is so that we can gain a little bit of insight into the political atmosphere of the time and the circumstances during which Shakespeare and Marlow may have been collaborating on a historical play. This under the rule of Queen Elizabeth, the first after recent war and during the persecution of the Roman Catholics. With England's national religious identity having shifted multiple times in the previous years under various Tudor monarchs, making it clear to us that these were turbulent and dangerous times, and setting up what's going to become the subplot of the play that will be drawn more and more into sharp focus as we carry on. But to begin with, we then go in a very different direction, because on the face of it, this is about the professional collaboration between these two playwrights, and more than that, the professional and personal relationship which they are developing when they first meet in the play. It is their first real introduction to each other, and there's a decent amount of sniffing around, loaded with sexual tension throughout the play. In fact, all of their dialogue feels like one part seduction, one part interrogation, with each man sort of fascinated and aroused and perplexed by the other in equal measure. And though, of course, we now regard Shakespeare as the Bard and one of history's greatest playwrights, what's interesting and exciting about this is the way in which he is almost immediately disempowered of all of that status, because Christopher Marlowe is very much his senior. Not in age. They are the same age, but he has more acclaim and more experience at the beginning. William Shakespeare, meanwhile, is the junior playwright and, in fact, something of a fan. All of this expressed through the slightly tense and reasonably flirtatious debate between the two of them, which, it's worth saying, on the page in the direction and in the performances, is deliberately steamy. And if the whole thing plays like the almost but not quite smutty fan fiction of a BA English Literature student, then that's because that's sort of what it is, which would be fine, interesting, even if it had just a little bit more to say. Once this play has introduced you to itself, it doesn't really evolve significantly from that. Christopher Marlowe makes a sort of a personal proposition to William Shakespeare within the first of their three encounters. He also makes a professional proposition, letting Shakespeare know about the world of espionage that he is embroiled in. With all of this backstabbing and the suggestion of names and the betrayals of each other and these different factions within the court, Shakespeare answers both, and for the remainder of the play, they more or less continue to have the same conversations. And we see something of an evolution in the intimacy of their relationship and the danger of their relationship and also the dangerous intimacy of their relationship. We also see a change in each man's social status by the end of the thing. But for A play that is reasonably short, it somehow feels as though it's overlonged, considering how much story there is to tell. It plays a little more like scene study between two interesting characters extrapolated from some historical evidence than it does like a full, fleshed out narrative. It's like, will they betray each other politically or will they go at it right here, right now, on the parchment, quills in hand? And we're just doing that for an hour and a half. And as much as I don't hate either of those things, we don't really reach much of a satisfying climax in either case. I'm trying to be a little careful with my wording here, but for fear of being crass. It is ultimately a lot of theatrical foreplay and a relationship that feels inevitable but is never fully consummated. And I mean that in the emotional sense, but you know what I mean that in multiple senses. And even when it seems like it is going to get consummated and the mounting sexual tension gives way to a moment of literal mounting, the play itself remains unfortunately, sort of stuck and static. So what are you left with? Well, through this semi anachronistic dialogue, which I think endears it to a contemporary audience, and you know, there's nothing wrong with that. At one point, Marlowe says uni when talking about his earlier academic study. What we're sort of doing is conceiving of a relationship between the two men and stripping back layer upon layer until they they have the chance to reveal steadily more and more of their own humanity to each other. And it becomes as much about the questions they aren't asking each other and the answers that they aren't giving as the ones that they are. It is, however, remarkably watchable. And a big part of that is the fantastic performances of its two stars.
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Let's talk about them. So we are introduced to Shakespeare first, but it's Marlow who has the real first opportunity to show off and shooty. Gatwa gets to excel in the outer scenes of the play at the beginning and in its conclusion, while Edward as Shakespeare absolutely does his best work in the middle. And Ancuti immediately arrives on the stage with that singular kind of charisma that he has become so celebrated for. He is flamboyant. He is removing his cape with a flourish. He is gesticulating with a quill in a sort of a phallic way. Hell, what am I saying? A decisively phallic way. He is also immediately playful from the moment that he blows out a candle on stage and the many lamps surrounding the three sides of the playing space all simultaneously ignite. That's pretty much what the set design looks like. There is some variation in the way that they are structured as the walls of the thing, but it conveys a sense of the electricity in the room in spite of the relative darkness that they would have been working in. Because make no mistake, Shakespeare is just trying to write this play. As they divide the work between the two of them and disagree about the way that characters ought to be presented and ought to be perceived with a nod to their political affiliat and how that will be thought of by audiences, but also how it will be thought of by the monarchy and by the court. But Kit Marlowe is just a shade less interested in all of that because his primary focus is Shakespeare for reasons that begin to emerge. But even as he is trying to extract potentially damning personal information about Shakespeare's own religious affiliations, he is all the while eyeing him hungrily in a way that is just really lip biting stuff. If there's one thing that the play in Daniel Evans direction really gets right, it's the loaded, charged sexual tension between these two men. So much so that you're really willing for some kind of progression or development in their relationship. You're longing for the power balance between the two of them to become just that little bit more tumultuous. And there are moments when it gives in to that. There are moments of intimacy and physical skirmish, and there are moments where they really challenge each other. But for the most part we remain sort of in Something of a headlock. And that's because, though there is a discrepancy between the more experienced Marlowe, in many senses, and perhaps the more naive Shakespeare when we first meet him, they are also committed to their differing ideologies, with Christopher Marlowe leading a slightly more publicly scandalous life, but being protected by the friends that he has in high places. At one point, Shakespeare mentions Edward ii, a play penned by Marlow that shockingly centres on a king's homosexual relationship and his protections of his boyfriend. This, interestingly enough, being a play that was produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company earlier this year, in which Daniel Evans himself starred. It is not only name dropped in this piece, but so is the lover of the king, Edward ii, as depicted in that his name is Gaveston. And if you remember my review of that production, which you're welcome to watch or listen to after this one, you'll remember me pointing out that they say his name in that constantly. That's a name that's never going to leave my mind. And that's why I got that reference. I was having war flashbacks when they said Gaveston. I was like a sleeper agent activated by that word. I sat up in that theater like a meerkat. Shakespeare, meanwhile, has an entirely different outlook. He tells Christopher Marlowe that as a writer, he wants to remain enduringly invisible, which is sort of laughable in the face of the enormous global success that he is going to go on to have beyond his lifetime and the way that he is going to be remembered in history. There are a couple of moments in the play where we as a modern audience get to laugh in the dramatic irony of it all, because something is said that we know now to entirely not be the case. But it's clear that when Shakespeare talks about wanting to be invisible and be behind his work and allow that to speak for itself and not be, you know, the public face of it in such a way that he and Marlowe are actually having a conversation about something else. They are talking about identity, and whether that is encompassing of religious beliefs and an entire world view or sexuality is sort of left open to interpretation. Christopher Marlowe challenges him a little bit on this, saying, who else but someone with desperate crimes to hide would want to be so secretive, ushering in an interesting conversation about the two men's distinct religious perspectives, with Shakespeare quoting his own as yet unwritten work, when he speculates about the existence of a God and suggests that he would like to believe that it is so grand and so extraordinary that it's beyond the scope of his own imagination. As he says, there is more in heaven and earth than we can dream of. This, of course, being one of the many lines of Hamlet. There is another direct Shakespearean reference when Marlowe phrases something by saying, peopled the world, as in populated. This being sort of a mockery of the idea that Shakespeare should choose to return to the countryside and have children with his wife. But that exact choice of words immediately reminded me of something that Caliban says in the Tempest. And I dare say there were plenty more Shakespearean references throughout, but I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of Shakespeare to be able to pick up on all of them. Those are just the ones that I noticed. And it's both a Shakespearean Easter egg for the super fans and the scholars, but also, you know, when Shakespeare is saying it, it's ideas that are still forming in his mind and inspirations that will go on to manifest in his plays. And when Marlowe is saying it, we find this out by the end of the play. It is an inspiration to Shakespeare as well. And the inclusion of those notions in his play is a tribute to the influence that he had on his. Him, allegedly. And this is all characterized very, very well in Edward Blumel's performance as William Shakespeare. He is thoughtful and apprehensive and eventually mournful. But we also get to see his rise depicted certainly by the end of the thing. There are some brilliant creative choices that steadily reveal to us in the final scene that Shakespeare, in the years that have passed, has risen up in the world. There is first a reveal of the outfit that he is wearing when he discards a cape. Then references in the dialogue to the success of his work before something of a gut punch revelation, the likes of which we have been basically waiting the entire play for, that indicate that where the two men now stand is very different to where they did back when they first met. And that this intermittently surfacing subplot about the then world of Secret Service has finally come to a head. And he's fantastic. They are both brilliant in these roles. Each of them captivating, charismatic and passionate. They've done very well, I think, to convey a sense of dynamics and pitch in the sort of minimally evolving relationship. And we see that particularly in the flashes of electricity between them, whether those are moments of violence, of romance, or one particularly brilliant section when the title of the play, Born with Teeth, is actually quoted in conversation with the briefest of pauses before both men simultaneously declare that they are going to use that in the script, that they are currently writing together and hastily try and pen it down. This after a back and forth about whether a character ought to be referred to as a bishop or a cardinal, with some consideration about which one was actually historically correct, but more consideration about which one sounds better. On the one hand, you have the double syllable impact of bishop versus the sort of sneaking, sinister quality of the extended cardinal. And it's this kind of dialogue and these kind of interactions that I wanted to see a little bit more of, rather than asking the same questions about religion and affiliation over and over and over. Finally, let me conclude then, by telling you about my overall thoughts on this play, its perspective, and also its themes. Now, I've criticized other pieces of theatre before for something of a lack of scope, and I think that could be a part of this diagnosis in terms of why this feels sort of minimally satisfying. Because I think the notion of the relationship that is suggested between these two men is actually pretty great fodder for the stage. And I think the scenes, for the most part, and the dialogue between them does catch fire, and they are brilliantly well cast and intensely and intimately directed. But it just isn't enough. It ends up feeling protracted, even as the political subplot eventually rears its head. I don't know if we're meant to experience the sensation that the censorious atmosphere of the time for poets who, you know, were conspicuous because they were giving voice to thoughts and to marginalized groups and able to sway the will of the people, is in any way meant to feel akin to contemporary censorship or cancel culture. But there's not an awful lot about this that feels astonishingly relevant now and for historical exploration. If the majority of this is an imagined partnership and relationship between the two of them, then it could go even further. Essentially, if we're going to do Shakespeare ex Marlowe fan fiction, then we may as well go a little further with it than to suggest that they met once a year for three years in a row and had some steamy conversations about their precarious positions in society. And I'm absolutely down for a piece of theater that spends time investigating the queer identities of these two playwrights. But I think there's also more fascinating fodder that could have been brought into this. There's an entire conspiracy theory about the possibility that Christopher Marlowe fakely his own death and then went on to write some of Shakespeare's plays. And we don't get that in this. Instead, we get an epilogue in which Shakespeare tells us about the ways that he tried to bring Christopher Marlowe to life in his writing, which feels indicative of a real romantic bond that we never saw them achieve on stage. Like that level of intimacy and understanding was perhaps teased at but never really happened. If this felt like something I was reading online one chapter at a time, then I'm still waiting for the next chapter. It also wounds itself a little bit. I fear to have Shakespeare repeatedly interview interjecting to remind the audience that this may or may not have happened. Ultimately, we all know that what we're looking at isn't documentary. And you know, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller's characters aren't walking to the front of the stage between scenes and saying, but was any of this real? There is, however, such a strong spark between these two performers, kept aflame by a compelling, if perhaps sort of technically and creatively unambitious production ignited by the sometimes sensitive, sometimes sensual performances of Edward Blumel and Nshuti Gadwa. They are both fantastic in this. They are fantastic together, and if their compelling chemistry is what you're looking forward to, then you shan't be disappointed. Go and check them out for yourselves in Born with Teeth at the Wyndham's Theatre, and if you have already let myself and everyone else know what you thought of it in the comments section down below, those have been my thoughts, but I'd love to hear yours. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this review. I hope that you enjoyed. If you did, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Turn on notifications so you don't miss any of my upcoming videos or go follow me on podcast platforms. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a Stagey Day. For 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey day. Subscribe.
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