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Mickey Jo
I'm not sure the last time I saw such joyous queer euphoria on stage so quickly give way to utterly devastating queer trauma Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a professional theatre critic and content creator here on social media and today I'm going to be telling you all about what I thought of the Royal Shakespeare Company's new production of the Christopher Marlowe play Edward ii. I so nearly said Richard ii. I have been doing that all week. Please throw something at your devices if I say Richard II at any point during this review. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. Not only have I seen both of them this year, but the two plays do have uncanny similarities. Spoiler alert. They are both about historic English kings who were forced from the throne and then slain. And I know what you're thinking, this sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun. And in fact it was. Especially if, like me, you have a very warped sense of enjoyment and you enjoy really thrilling, really passionate theater. Passionate is what this production is beyond anything else. I've been desperate to see this play for some time because it is one of the few canonically queer classical plays. It's really staggering that this was written and first performed as early as it was, and I'm very pleased that it is back at the Royal Shakespeare Company. For those of you who don't know the work of the Royal Shakespeare Company predominantly, they produce Shakespeare, but not exclusively. And while Hamlet is playing in the main house, this production is currently running in the Swan Theatre, another of their spaces, with Artistic Director co Artistic Director Daniel Evans starring in the titular role. Marlow, of course, was a contemporary of Shakespeare's, and while we can only speculate in hindsight about his possible sexual identity, the play leaves very little to the imagination. So let's talk about it now. If anyone else has seen either this or a previous production of Edward ii, let me know what you thought about it in the comments section down below. And if you do enjoy this review, and for some baffling reason you haven't already subscribed to my theater themed YouTube channel, feel free to hit that button or follow me on podcast platforms if that is where you are hearing my voice. In the meantime though, here is what I thought about Edward II at the RSC so Edward II then, is a 16th century Christopher Marlowe play depicting the brief reign of a 14th century king, Edward II. He ascends the throne during the events of the play after the passing of his father, the previous king, which happens at the very commencement, in fact, in the way that this production is staged by director Daniel Raggett, Audience members are invited to proceed around the stage, to walk up on to the stage where several members of the company are standing mournfully around this royal funeral, around this coffin, and you're allowed to go into that space and pay your respects and exit out the other side. I only didn't do that because we were arriving just a few minutes before the performance was about to begin. And even though it was still happening, I felt like being late to a funeral is embarrassing enough. But being late to a funeral in a theatrical context where everyone is also watching you, that felt like too much. And also I'm there reviewing with a notebook and taking that out and writing things down in a funereal context that feels like a social faux pas, honestly. But that is a sense of playfulness that we see in the early scenes of the play and the way that it's staged. The real ignition here of everything which is to come in the narrative is Edward becoming king allows him to reverse the banishment of his friend and lover, Pierce Gaveston, who has been banished to, I believe, France. It's always France. It's usually France, which is fair enough. International travel really wasn't what it is now. But after Gaveston is invoked in the text, when we first see him, he is in a steam room in a sauna, flanked by other men wearing towels. It seems patent, potentially like a gay sauna, which carries a whole different connotation. And, you know, when in France, that moment is also indicative of the way that the play will go on to be very overt in its queerness and forthright in its eroticism, which, when juxtaposed literally above and behind this very regal and official funeral, is completely emblematic of the clash between these two different worlds that proved too challenging for the crown to support. In short, the events of this play see Edward promoting Gaveston to high ranks against his better judgment because. Because of the affection shared between the two, this invoking an enormous malice and a rage in other members of the court who subsequently conspire against Gaveston and ultimately the king, who they don't believe is putting England first. There is a huge parallel here with the events of Richard ii, only with a gay relationship at the center, rather than a foolish, narcissistic king. In any case, though, in historical drama, whenever the Monarch is deposed, it is so often because of their own foolishness. And Edward here feels like a fool for love, which I guess is the better thing to be. It still doesn't work out well. That playfulness, which I mentioned continues when Gavison and Edward reunite, when Edward appoints him with titles, there is a real flirtatiousness to the way that he does it, the way that he demands he kneel in front of him. He uses this regal scepter hooked behind his head to bring the two of them closer together. All of which is really appropriate for the material, which is astonishingly overt in its queerness. Like I said, really shocking that this was written, written when it was. Although when the King's understandably displeased wife, Isabella refers to Edward clapping Gaveston's cheeks, that isn't what she means in that context, or at least I don't believe it is. Did Christopher Marlowe coin that expression? These are potentially questions for another day, but worth considering, I think. But inevitably, the joy all melts into sorrow. There is considerable bloodshed. Everyone gets very, very knife happy towards the end of this. Like just everyone seems to be carrying blades at dinner. I assume they ordered the steak. And a production that began tonally feeling not dissimilar to TV show Scandal begins to feel a little more like Breaking Bad, which, it's worth saying, are both great places for a classical production staged in a modern context to land Scandal being a Shonda Rhimes political drama motivated by these enormous passions and interconnected relationships. And Breaking Bad being. Being, I don't know, real intense and murderous. I didn't watch all of Breaking Bad, I'll be honest. And this is a production in a contemporary context. I mentioned the SA scene to you already, but everyone is in modern dress. When we first meet Queen Isabella, she walks in wearing, and I quote from my own notes, a pair of FU boots. She later costumed in a stylish blood red number, indicative of her involvement in the treason and the treachery which takes place. She was sort of styled like Posh Spice. If she were to be a member of the royal family, which, honestly, she may as well be. And I think we perceive this more explicitly at the beginning, when everyone is wearing suits, when they're sharing a packet of cigarettes, everything is more evidently modern. But when we eventually make way to the dismal cave setting where Edward is being held captive by his enemies, that then feels timeless enough that it no longer matters. And those two sensations for us as an audience speak to a story which still feels like it could unfold in the present day. And honestly, it's super good. And one which is devastatingly timeless, especially as it invokes really brutal violence against queer people, which is what we're going to move on to talk about next. Not the violence explicitly, but this material and this production's relationship to queerness. So just how gay is this? Well, like I said explicitly, this is a gay relationship between the king, Edward II and a gentleman named Gaveston, who he appoints beyond the status afforded to him by birth to noble rank. When he is insulted by a literal passing priest, the king enacts a show of force, allocates the priest's title to Gaveston, and has him thrown to the ground and humiliated, subsequently imprisoned. This is the play's first really shocking act of violence. And the rage that so quickly emerges in Edward, who seconds before was gleefully and youthfully delighted to see his lover returned to him, feels indicative of years of resentment. The man who he loves has been banished to another shore, which I think speaks to a timeless frustration in queer repression. I mean, even if the king doesn't get to bang the man he wants to, what hope is there for anyone else? And upon Gaveston's return, he conducts this relationship with no sense of secrecy. He openly rejects his wife and says to her, go have an affair, woman, and leave me alone. Nothing would make him happier. She regrettably, just simply loves her husband, so much so that she ends up helping in engineering his downfall. As we have seen before, Hal doth in fact have no fury, though she does fascinatingly appeal for Gaveston's return when he is banished for the second time. The man is like a yo yo in this play, with him being sent away and reinstated and all the power struggles that go on to make this happen. She appeals to Gaveston's adversaries and naysayers in court to have him returned and to not have him put to death. Because, as I understood it, if she could bring this joyous news to the king, she would go up in his estimation. This is where it started to remind me of scandal a little bit, if anyone has seen where she felt a lot like the character of Melly, who doesn't wish for the death of her husband's mistress because hers would become a legacy and a saint like personality that would be impossible to ever compete with. Pausing for a moment on the reactions of all of these lords who plot for Gaveston and the king's demise. What's very interesting here is that there is a backlash to this Being a gay relationship in the 1300s, the early 1300s at that, as if it would make a difference. But what seems to motivate them more immediately is the notion that he has been improperly elevated above his social status. For the emerging leader of this would be coup Mortimer. It does seem very much like he can excuse a homosexual relationship at the very heart of the British crown. But he draws the line at any sense of class mobility, which, what I tell you, is one of the most British things I have ever heard. It's like, go be a gay king as much as you want, but how dare you do it with a poor person? And while Richard is far from the only gay man to fall out with his friends over a relationship, although admittedly less treason is usually involved, he is not without his queer allies. In this piece, Gaveston's associates, Bulldog and Spencer, who we meet in a relationship of their own. One of their scenes in the play is reframed newly in a post coital context, who become allies to and ultimately witnesses to the despair of the King. And the traumatic deaths which follow are an aspect of the piece which are so strikingly staged and so passionately put across that we have to dedicate a little bit of time to talking about them here. But it may be slightly triggering. Feel free to skip ahead also, if you don't want spoilers on the exact details. But when Gaveston is kidnapped by this conspiratorial group, he is literally strung up. He is elevated and lifted in the space. The King, via messenger, appeals to the group of men, beseeching them to let let him see Gaveston one last time, a request that ultimately isn't granted when one of them goes rogue and stabs him. Blood then pours out of the man, his soon lifeless body still suspended in midair. It feels familiar of lynching, especially with all the men stood around him wearing uniform. And when the King himself is later put to death, with Mortimer having assumed his position as the head of his own family and attempting to influence and control the King's young son, who will succeed him royally and, you know, heavy as the head that longs to wear the crown, and even having the former king still live, begins to feel like a threat to this man who is growing more and more tense, he employs someone to assassinate him where he is held, the manner of which is so chillingly brutal and not historically inaccurate because Edward II is said to have been murdered via a hot poker which was inserted and I apologize for sharing this detail, it feels important into a very personal orifice one where you don't want a hot poker to be inserted, if honestly, you ever do, which, you know, it doesn't seem fun. Only it's even more devastating here because the assassin first convinces the king that he is a friend and an ally and seduces him almost as the two of them find each other in very close pseudo romantic embrace. He tricks the king into making himself more available and he removes his clothing before he is eventually pinned down naked in a pool of water and killed. In this horrifying manner. It is a pointed, torturous scolding death, one which seeks to punish the king for his romantic inclinations. Before I tell you about the brilliant performances, let's talk about a few more aspects of the production creatively, which I really enjoyed in this production by Daniel Raggett. So, as I mentioned before, this was, above all else, passionate, darkly passionate, and full of incredibly striking visual imagery. The stage upon which the initial scenes took place, covered in this perhaps parquet flooring, is what this is called, with all of the names of monarchs inscribed around the edge, conveying to us immediately the sense of its weight and its importance. Edward ultimately mourns for his lost crown alongside his lost lover, and we need to really feel how important that was. In a late scene when he is asked to formally forsake the crown in order to ease the transition of power, power to his son and guarantee his appointment, he shows the same reluctance that we saw from Jonathan Bailey's Richard II last month, only with perhaps, I think, even more angst. Here he feels considerably less like a young and naive man, and instead one who is acutely aware of the reasons behind his deposition and his imprisonment. By this time, that stage that I mentioned has rolled back into the rear playing space, a playing space which is frequently used in this production with dimmed lighting and with silent scenes, scenes played between actors, conveying this sense of conspiratorial machinations happening in the background of the action. And revealed beneath it is this staggering cave floor with a large pool of water in the center. This is where Edward is imprisoned after he is dethroned. And it's in this same setting that when asked to relinquish the crown, he handles it with bloody hands. And we see blood smeared upon it as it is thrown to the floor. It's very powerful, as is the initial reveal of that set piece with brilliant lighting, with brilliant soundscapes booming as the whole thing rolls back. This moment of initial thunderous drama as something unthinkable takes place, with a king suddenly thrown into this desolate setting soon afterwards turns to chilling silence, and we can hear a steadily quickening drip of water into this pool, which I think both served as a countdown to the exact hour of Edward's demise and focused our attention on this body of water for reasons that would later become painfully clear. The exact moment of overthrow, however, per the play, is more than a little bit prolonged. The pacing isn't perhaps quite as neatly structured as in R the Second, where, at least in the production I saw at the Bridge Theatre, the takeover of the throne occurs at the structural midpoint in this. At the beginning, we spend an awful lot of our time talking about Gaveston. Everyone is talking about Gaveston. Don't attempt a drinking game where you take a shot every time they say Gaveston, because you'll be far too plastered before the end of the thing. But we also go a considerable amount of time between the first and second dramatic climax. And those moments of dreadful violence are brilliantly engaging, and the moments of early joy and romance brilliantly engaging. And it's the conspiratorial stuff that takes place between that is considerably less engaging. It's dull, even. The one thing that this production doesn't seem to be able to do is to infuse those political moments with a sense of urgency and necessity. It's a little difficult for us to feel the implicit threat of all of the conversations that these lords are having as they plot against the King, as they are in league with his wife in doing so. And perhaps it's because everything gets reversed so quickly in the early stages. Gaveston is initially banished and he comes back, and then they have him banished again, but then he is allowed to return. And I wonder as well, not to criticize Christopher Marlow, whether this is a symptom of a play which begins sort of after the fact. They are, from the beginning, already pre annoyed with Gaveston and this situation, and this isn't a news flash to anyone except us, the audience. Some of the most striking visual moments which don't relate to death take place earlier in the play, when Edward visibly rejects the hand of his wife as he is following the procession of his father's coffin, as he instead kisses his male lover with paparazzi flashes framing the two of them in a romantic embrace, that image then projected onto the back wall. There's a later moment when Gaveston watches Edward's coronation, and right at the very end of the play, this is a spoiler alert for anyone who doesn't know exactly what this looks like. Edward's body is Buried alongside Gaveston's seemingly per the instructions of his son. Done. But finally, let's talk a little about the company bringing this classical story to the stage. Now, this is a really robust and strong company. Universally. Emilio Dorgesing brings tremendous pathos to the role of Pembroke, one of the more reluctant authors of Edward's downfall, while Enzo Silenti plays Mortimer, the man who emerges as the leader of this fact action, depicted with a reasonably chilling political determination. Considerably heartfelt and even charming performances from Edward's allies in Baldock and Spencer, played by Kwaku Mills and Stavros Demetracki. Poor sweet, well meaning Kent, the brother of the king who is initially supportive of him but is too easily corrupted by his enemies, is played very sincerely by Henry Pettigrew. And rutigered Mintas is a pretty fascinating Isabella, the wife of the king, who tearfully watches on as the man who she loves spurns her affections, burns their marriage in favor of another man. Hers was a poised and a steely performance. I would be so intrigued to see her Lady Macbeth. That's sort of what it conjured thoughts of as we move higher in the ranks then. Eloka Evo played Gaveston, the lover of the king, characterized as is the production itself, with an extraordinary passion. The love between the two of them is demonstrable. But there is this fear in me that it isn't reciprocated by Gaveston here quite as evidently. And it begins to feel like it could be a situation where there isn't an even adoration between the two. And he is benefiting from this very lucrative relationship, which I don't think is the intention of the piece because then that final beautiful tableau image sort of rings a little bit hollow. But it feels as though more often than not in the early scenes, Gaveston is more motivated by irritation and by being disrespected by those around him in court than he is by love. I will say, though, that the man does exceptional corpse work. Among the best I've ever seen. Which brings us to the performance of Daniel Evans as Edward ii, co artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is performing on one of its stages and he's been directing for a long time. It has been a little while since we've been able to enjoy a Daniel Evans performance on stage, but he was a really celebrated actor in his youth. I'm thrilled to see him returning to the stage because, you know, I'd forgotten how remarkable he was. There is a magic to the way that he performs. He brings an incandescent fury to parts of this material, juxtaposed alongside, as I mentioned, a really gleeful, euphoric sense of love and abandon and joy. He feels at all times regal and insistent, but petulant with the fury of someone so often criticized for their relationship choices. And it was already a really terrific and emotive performance from him, but when he reacted to the news of his lover's death and his hands were bloodied, he did such extraordinary work. It's a really remarkable stage performance from him. And you can't begrudge artistic director performing in one of their own program plays when the work is this brilliant, when the role is such a great fit. And those have been my thoughts about Edward ii. I so nearly said Richard again. Perhaps I did. At some point in this I didn't even notice he Royal Shakespeare Company thank you so much for listening. If you have seen this or any previous production of the play, let us know what you thought in the comments section down below. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening. Make sure you're subscribed or following me on podcast platforms so you can stay up to date with all of my upcoming theatre reviews. Reviews. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theater. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey day. Subscribe.