Theatre review: After Edward

As the name suggests, Shakespeare’s Globe is and always will be most associated with reviving work by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. But they’ve always included some new writing in the mix, and a year into her tenure as Artistic Director I’m wondering if that’s what’s going to define Michelle Terry’s time there. Granted, there’s been one honking error of judgement in Eyam, but Emilia has just transferred to the West End and a second raft of good reviews, and now Edward II gets a companion piece written by its lead actor, which certainly speaks to Terry’s nose for trying something new. Tom Stuart’s After Edward takes place not only immediately after Marlowe’s play, but specifically after Nick Bagnall’s production that’s still playing in repertory. So the room’s in total darkness when recently-deceased Edward (Stuart) falls through the trapdoor in the ceiling onto the Swanamaker stage, and Richard Bremmer’s Archbishop of Canterbury makes sure he’s OK and helps him light the candles before reverting to character and berating him for his sexuality.

Edward doesn’t know, at first, who he is, and in fact needs the label in his costume to inform him he’s the assassinated king. Once Canterbury leaves him alone on stage, he starts to be joined by much more anachronistic figures from queer history.

First Gertrude Stein (Annette Badland) wheels herself in on a fluffy pink toilet (it does get explained,) before Quentin Crisp (Richard Cant) gets lowered in on a swing, getting stuck hanging over the stage for most of the play. Eventually they’re also joined by Harvey Milk (Polly Frame,) and discover they’re now locked in the theatre (with the audience, of whom they’re aware but for the most part try to ignore.) Edward realises they’re going to be stuck there until he figures out what’s going on – meanwhile an angry presence occasionally bangs on the walls, trying to get in. Much of After Edward outright channels absurdist theatre – there’s a definite feel of Ionesco, as well as Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author in the confused characters finding themselves in a place that is explicitly this theatre.

But Stuart makes his point much clearer than some of the more traditional absurdist plays, and in yet another instance of a play turning out more horribly topical than could have been predicted, this is a play about Section 28 at a time when people are trying to get the law reinstated by any other name. Edward isn’t Edward but the actor who’s just played him, used his personal experience to inform his performance, and ended up conflating the two of them in his mind. And much of how he approached a man under constant attack for his sexuality comes from the shame of growing up in the late ‘80s with Margaret Thatcher’s government banning schools from being able to talk to confused children like him, and the law making bigots and bullies feel empowered to mock and attack.

Unlike the monster banging on the walls, Thatcher herself (Sanchia McCormack) tries to get in more sneakily, creeping in behind the actors, through the trapdoor and hiding in the audience, but Edward always manages to banish the architect of his early shame, and McCormack is a scene-stealer as she becomes increasingly bedraggled. There’s no question that After Edward is sometimes confused and a bit of a mess, as Stuart ties himself into mental knots, but at times it’s also undoubtedly glorious. The three imaginary mentors represent very different approaches to gay pride – Stein living on her own terms with a wife and circle of artist friends, but doing so at a remove from the world at large. Crisp is the big contradiction, flamboyant and challenging the straight patriarchy to their face but also full of internalised (and externalised) homophobia. And Frame’s dementedly hyperactive Milk is the out-and-proud face of celebrating not just your sexuality but the fact that sex is an integral part of it.

If he sometimes goes round in circles Stuart always has another trick up his sleeve to kick things up a gear, like the late arrival of Jonathan Livingstone’s bombastic Edward Alleyn – likely the first actor to play Marlowe’s Edward. One of the biggest laughs of the evening comes when Stuart/Edward, struggling over how his relationship with an ex informs his performance, asks Alleyn what questions he asked when he had the playwright himself to hand: “WHAT IS MY CUE AND WHAT AM I HOLDING?” is the cheerfully-boomed answer. Brendan O’Hea’s production juggles the more serious side of the play with a camp and funny sensibility that firmly places it, despite its angst, as predominantly a celebration, and a couple of well-handled coups de théâtre near the end really send you out with a smile on your face.

In some ways, Stuart’s exploration of his own life through his performances is the sort of thing that I’ve seen actor/writers create before, usually as monologues, usually in fringe theatres; Terry giving him the opportunity to expand on that familiar format with a cast and a budget is what makes me excited for her instincts commissioning new writing – and the Globe has recently launched a new initiative to find more of it. It makes it disappointing that the upcoming summer season features no premieres, but if that’s because they’re waiting for the right things to come along I can wait.

After Edward by Tom Stuart is booking in repertory until the 6th of April at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.