1 - r is at Stratford-atte-Bowe, not Stratford- upon-Avon, that one of
the best-written Elizabethan plays is now on view. Theatre Workshop, whose resources could scarcely be more limited, are to be congratulated—on the choice of play, on a highly effective production, and on compassing Marlowe's thirty-odd characters with a cast of 11 M. 2 F. without discernible sacrifice of important incidents from the text.
This Edward (Peter Smallwood) is never for a moment kingly (as he was so strikingly portrayed in a fine production on the Edin- burgh Festival fringe recently); rather is he a waspish little nagger whose mistaken notions of his importance and ability are rapidly deflated by as tough a bunch of barons as faced his predecessor, John, at Runnymede. The Edward-Gaveston affaire is given every textual licence to make it appear as un- becoming, and—more important for the plot— as politically inept.
The cast can, without offence, be defined as a group of rough-hewn talents but with the almost unanimous virtue of speaking audibly and passionately the arrow-straight and pungent lines. The raise-en-scene (more cor- rectly defaut de scene) is finely lit and the incidents rush past at exactly the right pace. If this production isn't quite the kind of thing to knock 'em in the Old Kent Road, it ought. to be of interest to several parties in the vicinity of the New Cut, Lambeth.
A. V. C.
Previous page
