London Theatre Finale: Born with Teeth
Aug. 20th, 2025 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAt long last, the highlight and ending of my London theatre marathon, and it would be yours, too: On stage Marlowe/Shakespeare slash fiction! I had hoped this to be the case from the sexy poster and the short summary, and when I acquired the programm and read it, I knew it, because among the listed crew is one Katherine Hardman, Intimacy Coordinator, whose previous Intimacy Coordinating tasks included AMC’s Interview With the Vampire. Clearly a woman who coordinated Lestat/Louis, Louis/Armand, and Lestat/Armand in an actor and audience friendly way would be up to Kit/Will, thought I. Thank you, RSC. And Liz Duffy Adams, who wrote the play. And Daniel Evans, who directed it.
Wyndham’s Theatre: Born With Teeth
Incidentally, the posters hadn’t said who would play whom, but I just assumed Ncuti Gatwa would be gay atheist spy Marlowe, and Edward Bluemel Shakespeare, and indeed this proved to be the case. Since this play is a two hander, meaning only two actors show up and are on stage the entire time, it needs a combination of great acting and hotness, and they both delivered.
Like some non-fiction books on Shakespeare in the last decade, the play emphasizes how the later Elizabethan years might have been a golden age for art but were otherwise more like the GDR in its final years, atmosphere wise, with everyone spying on everyone else, the knowledge that you’re living in an absolute monarchy where when you do anything regarded as suspicious the authorities may do anything to you, and no one knows what the future would bring. Unlike the other plays I watched, the staging uses some video technology for the opening and for the transitions between the three big scenes (one set in 1591, one in 1592, one in 1593), and the lighting very efficiently and painfully for the final effect (more about this later), but otherwise the stage decoration is pretty minimalist: a table, some chairs. The background consists of the lights. Our two characters are in costume, but it’s a mixture between period- and contemporary inspired rather than an attempt at actual Tudor style (which is what A Man for all Seasons went for). Basically what Bridgerton did with Regency (and Georgian in the case of Queen Charlotte).
The premise is simple and uses the current assumption (backed up by computer analysis of the vocabularies, I’m told) that Marlowe was among the playwrights who worked with young Shakespeare on the three Henry VI plays. (Since watching the play, I googled reviews and was appalled to find one thinking those are the plays with Falstaff. No, those are the two Henry IV plays. The Henry Seven ones are the rarely staged ones with Queen Margaret that work as a prequel to Richard III.) (Oh, and if you’ve either read or watched Sandman, the scene where Dream and Hob first meet also has young Will getting advice from Marlowe about those plays.) In Born with Teeth - itself a quote from H7 - , this collaboration is the MacGuffin around which the story is built: the first sequence sees them collaborate on H VI, 1, the second on H VI, 2, wheraes the third doesn’t see them collaborate on H VI, 3 because that’s already written and presented but provides another excuse for them meeting which however grew out of the previous ones.
We start out with Marlowe - aka Kit - as the bad boy rock star of playwrights and Shakespeare, aka Will, as the newbie who is somewhat star struck but also hugely ambitious and has a better work ethic and determination from the start. There is flirting from the get go, and that weaves in and out of emotional power play because Kit fills the Stratford guy in on his other job (spy) pretty quickly and more than hints you need protection or you’re toast and he’s got to deliver someone because the authorities are jittery and paranoid. As with every good play and fanfiction, there’s banter and sparring to go with the flirting, along with ever increasing UST.
(BTW: I’m impressed of how this play handles the exposition problem. It does fill the audience in as to who Robert Cecil, the Earl of Essex and Walter Raleigh are, and why that’s relevant to our heroes, but otherwise doesn’t drop any names (well, okay, Kit says very early on that Southhampton isn’t a good patron and won’t get Will anywhere), because what matters is the whole “How to survive and succeed in a paranoid dictatorship” part, and that doesn’t need lengthy lectures on Elizabeth’s reign.)
At first, the contrasts are pretty obvious, but for all that Kit repeatedly calls Will naive, Will tells him twice “you don’t know me”, and that becomes a plot point in more than one way; Kit’s defiant “what you see is what you get” bad boy persona versus Will’s determined guardedness behind the polite and friendly veneer. Language wise, Adams makes no attempt to let them talk Elizabethan-style, but goes for neutral modern (i.e. while there are no deliberate anachronisms like “let’s dial this up”, the language is that of today), and despite the fact there are frequent quotes from the plays and poetry of both writers, this mingling works amazingly well. They quickly establish a push-pull dynamic where who is pushing and who is pulling keeps changing, and where you can’t be sure that sexual flirtation is sincere or another competitive tool. (Well, in the first scene. By the time the second rolls along, it’s pretty clear there’s actual emotion involved, at least to the audience.)
The theatre business isn’t the only one key to this play, though; there’s also, always, the spying. At times, I was reminded of both John Le Carré novels and Orson Welles movies, in which the theme of betrayal, specifically betrayal between men who are emotionally close, is a constant thing. Very much so here, and when Marlowe brings up fellow playwright Thomas Kydd, early in the first part, you might guess where this could be going if you know about Kydd but you don’t have to because the play will show you very soon. It’s also a Chekovian gun, duly fired in the third sequence.
Trivia I: this is the first fictional take on Shakespeare/someone else I’ve come across which doesn’t feel the need to diss Anne Hathaway despite bringing her up. THANK YOU. (David Blixt wrote a great Shakespeare/Marlowe novel which was flawed only in this regard. Shakespeare in Love feels the need to have Will declare “there is no love there” as well. The 1970s Shakespeare tv show I watched some years ago as well as a movie, both of whom are him/the Dark Lady and him/Mr. W.H. (In one case Southhampton, in one case Pembroke), also go with the “it was a miserable marriage and Anne briefly shows up to look disapproving and sour-faced” thing. Born with Teeth is better than that. Yay!
Trivia II: Because the Oxfordians constantly declare no mere glovemaker’s son from Stratford could have been a genius playwright, it amused me this play makes sure to inform us that Marlowe was a shoemaker’s son, also from the provinces
In conclusion: loved the play, loved the actors, loved the production, and am travelling back to Munich in a state of fannish delight.
Wyndham’s Theatre: Born With Teeth
Incidentally, the posters hadn’t said who would play whom, but I just assumed Ncuti Gatwa would be gay atheist spy Marlowe, and Edward Bluemel Shakespeare, and indeed this proved to be the case. Since this play is a two hander, meaning only two actors show up and are on stage the entire time, it needs a combination of great acting and hotness, and they both delivered.
Like some non-fiction books on Shakespeare in the last decade, the play emphasizes how the later Elizabethan years might have been a golden age for art but were otherwise more like the GDR in its final years, atmosphere wise, with everyone spying on everyone else, the knowledge that you’re living in an absolute monarchy where when you do anything regarded as suspicious the authorities may do anything to you, and no one knows what the future would bring. Unlike the other plays I watched, the staging uses some video technology for the opening and for the transitions between the three big scenes (one set in 1591, one in 1592, one in 1593), and the lighting very efficiently and painfully for the final effect (more about this later), but otherwise the stage decoration is pretty minimalist: a table, some chairs. The background consists of the lights. Our two characters are in costume, but it’s a mixture between period- and contemporary inspired rather than an attempt at actual Tudor style (which is what A Man for all Seasons went for). Basically what Bridgerton did with Regency (and Georgian in the case of Queen Charlotte).
The premise is simple and uses the current assumption (backed up by computer analysis of the vocabularies, I’m told) that Marlowe was among the playwrights who worked with young Shakespeare on the three Henry VI plays. (Since watching the play, I googled reviews and was appalled to find one thinking those are the plays with Falstaff. No, those are the two Henry IV plays. The Henry Seven ones are the rarely staged ones with Queen Margaret that work as a prequel to Richard III.) (Oh, and if you’ve either read or watched Sandman, the scene where Dream and Hob first meet also has young Will getting advice from Marlowe about those plays.) In Born with Teeth - itself a quote from H7 - , this collaboration is the MacGuffin around which the story is built: the first sequence sees them collaborate on H VI, 1, the second on H VI, 2, wheraes the third doesn’t see them collaborate on H VI, 3 because that’s already written and presented but provides another excuse for them meeting which however grew out of the previous ones.
We start out with Marlowe - aka Kit - as the bad boy rock star of playwrights and Shakespeare, aka Will, as the newbie who is somewhat star struck but also hugely ambitious and has a better work ethic and determination from the start. There is flirting from the get go, and that weaves in and out of emotional power play because Kit fills the Stratford guy in on his other job (spy) pretty quickly and more than hints you need protection or you’re toast and he’s got to deliver someone because the authorities are jittery and paranoid. As with every good play and fanfiction, there’s banter and sparring to go with the flirting, along with ever increasing UST.
(BTW: I’m impressed of how this play handles the exposition problem. It does fill the audience in as to who Robert Cecil, the Earl of Essex and Walter Raleigh are, and why that’s relevant to our heroes, but otherwise doesn’t drop any names (well, okay, Kit says very early on that Southhampton isn’t a good patron and won’t get Will anywhere), because what matters is the whole “How to survive and succeed in a paranoid dictatorship” part, and that doesn’t need lengthy lectures on Elizabeth’s reign.)
At first, the contrasts are pretty obvious, but for all that Kit repeatedly calls Will naive, Will tells him twice “you don’t know me”, and that becomes a plot point in more than one way; Kit’s defiant “what you see is what you get” bad boy persona versus Will’s determined guardedness behind the polite and friendly veneer. Language wise, Adams makes no attempt to let them talk Elizabethan-style, but goes for neutral modern (i.e. while there are no deliberate anachronisms like “let’s dial this up”, the language is that of today), and despite the fact there are frequent quotes from the plays and poetry of both writers, this mingling works amazingly well. They quickly establish a push-pull dynamic where who is pushing and who is pulling keeps changing, and where you can’t be sure that sexual flirtation is sincere or another competitive tool. (Well, in the first scene. By the time the second rolls along, it’s pretty clear there’s actual emotion involved, at least to the audience.)
The theatre business isn’t the only one key to this play, though; there’s also, always, the spying. At times, I was reminded of both John Le Carré novels and Orson Welles movies, in which the theme of betrayal, specifically betrayal between men who are emotionally close, is a constant thing. Very much so here, and when Marlowe brings up fellow playwright Thomas Kydd, early in the first part, you might guess where this could be going if you know about Kydd but you don’t have to because the play will show you very soon. It’s also a Chekovian gun, duly fired in the third sequence.
Trivia I: this is the first fictional take on Shakespeare/someone else I’ve come across which doesn’t feel the need to diss Anne Hathaway despite bringing her up. THANK YOU. (David Blixt wrote a great Shakespeare/Marlowe novel which was flawed only in this regard. Shakespeare in Love feels the need to have Will declare “there is no love there” as well. The 1970s Shakespeare tv show I watched some years ago as well as a movie, both of whom are him/the Dark Lady and him/Mr. W.H. (In one case Southhampton, in one case Pembroke), also go with the “it was a miserable marriage and Anne briefly shows up to look disapproving and sour-faced” thing. Born with Teeth is better than that. Yay!
Trivia II: Because the Oxfordians constantly declare no mere glovemaker’s son from Stratford could have been a genius playwright, it amused me this play makes sure to inform us that Marlowe was a shoemaker’s son, also from the provinces
In conclusion: loved the play, loved the actors, loved the production, and am travelling back to Munich in a state of fannish delight.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 06:33 pm (UTC)(Looking at wikipedia, not sure it's ever been staged in Europe).
no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2025-08-20 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 10:46 pm (UTC)Marlowe is also a candidate for 'true Shakespeare' and the only one who's not aristocratic (I guess he's passable because of going to university/being a spy/being a rockstar and not a sedate business-minded person)
no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 07:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-26 12:08 am (UTC)I saw a local production last year, and really enjoyed it. The theater was small enough that the audience was basically sitting eye level around the long table and they spent enough time walking (among other things) on top of it. The program also credited an intimacy coordinator, which clued the audience in much the same way it did for you!
no subject
Date: 2025-08-26 05:12 am (UTC)