Edward II
American Conservatory Theater, 5/16/00
Most humans these days have licenses that allow them to operate a car. The majority of these people adhere to the rules of the road and gently coast through life with nary an incident. Others careen recklessly across the landscape, upsetting the norm and driving others mad with their vehicular insouciance. Similarly, poetic license is the manifest right of any playwright working with a classic text, and adapter/director Mark Lamos and partner Paul Walsh certainly exercised their rights to haphazardly veer far left of center in interpreting Chrisopher Marlowe’s Edward II.
Having avoided reading any advance press or reviews of Edward II upon my entry into the American Conservatory Theater last night, I was prepared for an evening of heady entertainment in the form of an Elizabethan drama, a smart adaptation of Marlowe’s work. What I saw more closely resembled Bob Guccione’s cinematic debacle, Caligula. There are all-male orgies, locker room shower scenes, spurting blood, urination and plenty of gratuitous fondling. King Edward himself is finally disposed of by receiving a red-hot poker in the keister, a la Abner Louima’s much-reviled violation by New York City’s finest. The entire production is modernized in the vein of Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 cinematic version of Romeo and Juliet (the one with Leonardo DiCaprio), though Lamos has cut the play by a third, condensed characters and slightly modernized bits of dialogue. My reflexive association of the play with this film left me giggling intermittently throughout the evening as I also invariably associate Mr. DiCaprio with his standout role as the dimwitted Arnie in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? More on that later.
The production focuses intently on the assumed love affair between King Edward and his minion, the peasant Gaveston. Edward’s cronies are none too pleased with his association with Gaveston, though they claim to disprove of him on the basis that the boy is "one so basely born." Lamos recognizes this as thinly veiled homophobia that is acted upon throughout the play and portrayed as the main instigator of violence and revolt against the king. A fine and valid reading of Marlowe’s work, indeed, though Lamos feels the need to exaggerate the fear of queer to the extreme. He presents the plotters repeatedly in ultra-macho weightlifting scenes juxtaposed with their naked cohorts showering nearby. This is an attempt to show that the hatred for the king comes from man’s innate attraction to other men that often leads to flamboyant rejection of these feelings and physical violence. While this bizarre mis en scene elicits jittery laughs and certainly achieves its purpose, the net effect is hokey and overbearing. The costumes (heavy on leather and bare skin) and choreographed fight scenes bring to mind any Michael Jackson video and also detract from the profundity of the point that they are attempting to drive home.
While growing increasingly irritated by the gaudy sets and over-the-top symbolism blemishing the stage, I was somehow completely enthralled by the guts of the play. Perhaps I was drawn to the debauchery just as one has a perverse interest to stare long at Serrano’s urine drowning a plastic Jesus. Maybe Marlowe’s classic suspenseful yarn of love, family and revenge was simply able to shine through the absurdity of the updated presentation. But my vote is for some terrific acting performances that lifted the show back into tolerability after its kitsch and shock value wore off. Vivienne Benesch stood out as the disgruntled and neglected Queen Isabella (after all, she was the only female role in the production) and convinced me to feel sorry for her despite the character’s philandering ways. One could feel the confusion suffered at the hands of love that forever haunted Edward and clouded his judgement; Malcom Gets made the unbelievable believable and projected much energy in his role as the ruler. The rest of the cast complemented the leads and themselves well despite their recurring appearance in, on and around a set donated by Gold’s Gym (no kidding).
And then there was Prince Edward. Just as I had gotten over the laughable sets and abundance of combat boots, along comes Prince Edward to tickle my ribs again. The young soon-to-be king was portrayed by Jonathan Sanders, who, at least from my spot in the plebeian second balcony, was a spitting image for one Leonardo DiCaprio, and he projected the part in a pubescent pitch not unlike that of Leo’s. For the remainder of the play, my mind drifted to the fields of Endora and images of the inimitable Arnie Grape. This inattention on my part was quite convenient, as the climax of the play was forced and choppy, and the ending trite and poorly executed.
Art should surprise us and elicit an emotive response, and Lamos’s version of Edward II certainly is a work of art, as can be soup cans or urinals. It rejects the norm, confounds the uninitiated, opens the doors to interpretation, invites heated debate. But in the end, after all of the abstraction and umpteen cups of coffee, it loses the importance for which it strives through the overkill delivery of the message. That message in the case of Edward II is noted, briefly digested and then expunged with little effort.
Edward II is playing now through June 4 at the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), located on Geary between Mason and Taylor. Tickets are $14-$55 and are available at the theater box office or by calling 749-2228. For more information, visit A.C.T.’s web site at www.act-sfbay.org.
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