Edward II – Theatre@41, York

Writer: Christopher Marlowe

Director: Tom Straszewski

What do you do when you have staged all of Shakespeare’s plays in a sequence going back to 2002? Begin again, of course, as York Shakespeare Project did withRichard IIIearlier this year. This time, however, there is a change: YSP is including some of the greatest plays of his contemporaries. Hence Marlowe’sEdward II.

You could say thatEdward II is Marlowe’s Richard II. Both deal with a king besotted with favourites and his downfall at the hands of a ruthless lord; both have moving scenes late on where the king sits him down and tells sad stories of the fall of kings (very well played at Theatre@41 by Jack Downey) and strangely detached death scenes. But Marlowe is different. Above all he plays the homoerotic appeal between Edward and Gaveston to the hilt. This is not enough for Tom Straszewski. They make the successor as favourite, Spencer, equally attractive to the King, hint at homosexuality in his assassin, Lightborn, and – most important of all – change the gender of Mortimer with the result that her involvement with the Queen becomes another same-sex relationship.

Overall, though, one has sympathy with Straszewski. Marlowe is a far less disciplined writer than Shakespeare, and, if we’re used to directors taking a knife to Shakespeare’s cast lists, for Marlowe it’s more like a machete. Despite a healthy cast list of 17 (four doubling) YSP had to rid themselves of multiple parts, including the elder Spencer. Moreover the very understandable casting of women as men (logically enough, changing the gender of the character, too) produces some odd confrontations. Finally the excising of chunks of plot produces a first half where, in between Edward and Gaveston’s frolics, the lords assemble and banish Gaveston, then five minutes later assemble and bring him back, and so on.

In the end the production periodically comes up with a great effect, but more often, despite the talent of many of the players, misfires. The action takes place on and around a sofa/bed, but behind it is a make-up table with a pile of glossy magazines. For the first half Princess Edie (she later becomes Queen, but don’t worry, it’s another gender switch), reflected in the mirror, toys with the magazines and cuts bits out – a clever idea justified by a telling performance in the second half from Effie Warboys – but why does Straszewski require her to stomp around furiously knocking over everything in her path, then straightening it? C’est une idee? Another equally odd idea is to have the King’s three paramours (including Lightborn) sing, unaccompanied and not very well, I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire.

Straszewski makes great use of the galleries on either side: the confrontations often have real power. But the production’s modern setting is against them. Part of the opposition to Gaveston is that he is low-born, so the miscellaneous array of costumes – with tee-shirts prominent – makes this hard to sustain. If you want to refer to them as nobles, surely they should look less street-corner-ish?

James Lee is suitably sexy and hedonistic as Gaveston and for the first half Jack Downey (Edward) sulks and/or responds to him, but, as the play progresses, he finds poetry and dignity in the character. He is supported by a talented cast, but Emma Scott exemplifies the problems they have. Her performance as Mortimer is full of intelligence and craft, beautifully nuanced, but, though we can believe the cold-eyed ruthlessness with which she despatches her opponents, can we accept her as an oak of old England?

Runs until 21st October 2023