**** (four stars) RSC Review: Daniel Evans gives a virtuoso performance in Edward II at RSC Swan Theatre
It’s a most delicious irony that the straightest production the RSC has ventured in a long while should be brought to bear on Christopher Marlowe’s infamous queer historical play, Edward II.
By-and-large faithful to the original The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer, it isn’t sited on an ocean liner or a spaceship or anywhere else kooky or unlikely for that matter. It unfolds in the courtly surrounds that the playwright envisaged back in the 1590s, the sole concession to a refresh a fancy costume update that carries just enough symbolic significance to hint at thematic modern relevancy and bit of plot pruning so that it can run energetically, with a minimum of discomfort for the audience, at 100 minutes with no interval.
What all this means is that the production is primed for a virtuoso performance from the RSC’s co- creative director Daniel Evans as the titular Edward. It’s Evans’ first appearance in a play since 2014 and he makes up for all those years behind the scenes with flamboyant relish. His king is a truculent whiner, prone to tantrums when he doesn’t get his way and not much interested in governing or being a diplomat. What he is mostly, though, is gay.
Director Daniel Raggett’s edit has placed the king’s homosexuality front and centre, providing Evans with extravagant opportunity to snog and clinch and caress and cuddle with the object of his heart’s desire, Eloka Ivo’s promiscuous playboy Gaveston.
Scarcely can the RSC have presented a more graphic and forensically detailed portrayal of blind-to-all-else love sickness as Evans’ Edward, his thwarted, needy physical and psychological attraction to Gaveston growing beyond our sympathy into an uncomfortable, pathetic and ultimately fateful obsession.
This unstinting focus on Edward’s aberrant desires dumps the reasons for the king’s downfall pretty much solely in the lap of the court’s homophobia. And this is where it all becomes a bit problematic. In Marlowe’s play as written, the seeds of the rebellion which see Edward deposed lay in a variety of grievances. Sure, homophobia is one of them but in clearing all out of the way to spotlight such a rich character study of the king, Raggett’s avowed intent to present the play as a political thriller falls short, principally because no other reasons for rebellion are given much of a look-in.
Next door to the Swan, in the main theatre, the Hamlet currently running has edited out a lot of the warring nations stuff to make for a speedier show, the streamlining jetissoning a lot of the ponderous extranieties to showcase a stunningly vibrant new portrayal. The editing of Edward II has had the inverse effect, much of the motivational richness reduced.
There is a surfeit of grimacing and turning away from the nobles when Ed embraces Gav in front of them, but I’d like to venture that maybe it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest anti-gay sentiments are the principal cause of the plot to overthrow the monarchy. Surely the threat of invasion from France which the king appears not in the least troubled by and which is cursorily mentioned, would be a more pressing matter to the state. Edward’s barney with the church over their role in banishing Gav gets a little attention, as does the fact that the king’s infatuation with Gav breaches protocol as the lover is a commoner.
Maybe being gay was a big deal back in the days Marlowe chronicles but surely audiences would have been used to men kissing on stage as there were no female actors allowed in Elizabethan times so all roles were played by males. Would a couple of chaps snogging have carried much impact to a Tudor audience? Dunno.
The other issue in sacrificing the play so completely to Evans’ brilliant Edward is that the other characters suffer in his shadow. Ivo’s Gaveston shows huge promise when introduced– up on a balcony above the old dead king’s coffin in the cathedral, exiled by the court, bawdily carousing with his gay chums in a sauna and boasting of his royal connections. But that’s the best that he gets and when he’s reunited with Edward, we’re never sure whether it’s the real thing or the king’s being gulled by a chancer.
As for the rest, the king’s antagonistic advisers are a bit like a bunch of Michael Goves, remarkably unremarkable and there’s nothing in Enzo Cilenti’s Mortimer to suggest that he has either the Machiavellian chutzpah to seize the kingdom, or the smarts or sexual allure to woo Isabella, Edward’s Queen who is largely absent even when she’s present. This, of course, could be the point: that little men with nothing much going for them except self-interest can still wreak historical havoc. In which case, job very well done.
The murder of the king by the hired assassin Lightborn, played with persuasive creepiness by Jacob James Beswick, is the bit that gets the crowd talking on the way out. Mired in a sewage-filled dungeon, Edward is offed by a red-hot poker up the jacksy - a brilliant bit of writing from Marlowe which cojoins the art of executing internally so as to leave no visible marks which could implicate the perpetrators and, of course, a brutal allusion to gay sex. It’s appropriately staged, hellishly.
Whatever its aim, the prevailing impression this excellent Edward leaves us with is of the pernicious power of prejudice. So, with that in mind, I thought I’d share this: while preparing to file this piece for publication, I thought I’d check to see what other reviewers thought and in the readers’ comments at the end of the Daily Torygraph, I discovered this: “I see that the now obligatory anachronistic black characters are included, though I suppose the ‘modern’ label provides a spurious permission.”
Which just goes to show that if it isn’t sexual persuasion, or deference to the class system, or lack of due attention to one’s designated role in life, there’s always something else for the idiots to moan about.
