Delicious Banter between Two Great Playwrights

“The Queen is an old monster.”

Will Shakespeare

Launching in London at Wyndham’s Theatre is the RSC’s production of Liz Duffy Adam’s play about William Shakespeare (Edward Bleumel) and Christopher Marlowe (Ncuti Gatwa) collaborating on Henry Vi Part Three. From the off, Ncuti Gatwa delivers a charming and mercurial performance as the enigmatic Marlowe who was to lose his life aged 29, stabbed in the eye in a Deptford drinking house.

The theatre programme explains the background to Elizabethan politics, the flipping of the state religion under Edward VI’s Regents’ Protestantism back to Catholicism under Mary Tudor and then Elizabeth I’d Protestantism: “I have no desire to make windows into men’s souls”, as long as they were outwardly Church of England. It mentions Elizabeth’s chief of spies Francis Walsingham and his successor Robert Cecil.

Marlowe teases the less confident Shakespeare for being an actor and the son of a glover. Marlowe counts himself a writer and poet first and foremost, and when Shakespeare reminds him that his father was a shoemaker, Marlowe says that he won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge (or uni as the script crassly puts it, widely adopted from Australia in the 1980s.) It has always been a mystery how Shakespeare was educated, probably at the local Stratford grammar school in Latin and Classicals authors, but there are those that claim he tutored pupils in Stratford in Latin.

The Privy Council intervened on behalf of Marlowe on the awarding of his degree citing “faithful dealing” and “good service” to the Queen which has been interpreted to mean that he might have spied for Walsingham. The play’s title “Born with Teeth” is used in Henry VI Part Three as being about Richard Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III. Both writers say they want to use the expression as they wave around their quill pens.

It is 1591 and they are working together on Henry VI Part Three. They discuss Joan of Arc. Shakespeare wants to make her a heroine, a woman dressed as a soldier, an interesting inspiration but Marlowe says, “She’s not a hero! She’s fucking French!” There is great banter between them with Kit Marlowe being very camp and with a dazzling smile, and of course he’s the one climbing on the furniture. There is acknowledgement that he was the author of the great Tamburlaine. Marlowe wears an elaborate leather jacket and trousers decorated with stylistic slashes designed by Joanna Scotcher.

They mention fellow playwrights, those of the Jacobean Revenge Tragedies, especially Thomas Kyd who was always in trouble. There is little set other than the wooden trestle table and wooden chairs and stools. The introduction is filmed with closeups of teeth but the main set uses a battery of spotlights which are dimmed and brightened for atmosphere. These lights appear as a candle is blown out. There are moments exploring the homoeroticism between Marlowe and Shakespeare including a fight that turns into an embrace.

Daniel Evans directs and I suspect he really enjoyed this lighter take on Shakespeare while he is Co-Artistic Director of the RSC in Stratford. This play is great fun to watch especially for Ncuti (Pronounced NCoushy) Gatwa’s iridescent performance with Edward Bleumel as Marlowe’s calmer and steadier foil.