Theatre review: Born With Teeth

After a quiet start to his time as half the Artistic Director of the RSC Daniel Evans is having a busier second year, following up his role as a Christopher Marlowe lead by directing a play about the man himself. Liz Duffy Adams' Born With Teeth takes as its premise an academic theory that Marlowe might have contributed to Shakespeare's early Henry VI plays, as well as from the persistent rumours that he was murdered for his work as a spy. In a private back room in a pub we see the two playwrights - aware of each other but not yet acquainted - meet for the first time after being asked to complete an unfinished draft of the play that is now known as Part I. Kit Marlowe (Ncuti Gatwa) is the established, bad-boy superstar of Elizabethan theatre, and plays up to this image to the somewhat star-struck Will Shakespeare (Edward Bluemel,) dominating the conversation and making sure he reserves all the best scenes from the outline for himself.

He's also full of advice for his contemporary, not just about writing and their very different approaches to it, but also about politics and what a man in the public eye needs to do to protect himself.

This boils down to allying himself to someone powerful: The opening scene of the pair being tortured for sedition (a scene Will quickly admits is a fear of his rather than anything that actually happened) quickly establishes the Elizabethan age as the original surveillance state, and Kit describes the triangle of Essex, Cecil and Raleigh vying for power around the throne. He has placed himself somewhere in the middle of all these machinations, allying himself to one side and willing to sell out some of his fellow playwrights if it gets him protection. Despite his abrasive manner he's clearly become quickly fond of Shakespeare, and advises him to make his own alliances and deals.

Evans' production is full of dynamic visuals: Joanna Scotcher's set is dominated by Neil Austin's dramatic lighting rig, and Will's moments of narration between scenes are done to a backdrop of Andrzej Goulding's urgent, flickering security footage. The biggest fireworks come from the cast themselves, Gatwa bounding about the stage full of dangerous charisma and irrepressible flirtation, Bluemel softer, more cautious but undeniably electric in his own way. Ira Mandela Siobhan's movement direction has them build a very physical relationship from the start and puts the sexual tension between them front and centre.

The trouble is all these bells and whistles are there because they absolutely need to be: The script itself is as thin as the cast is buff. In fact this could be a very accurate version of how these two men might have talked to each other because it rambles round in circles, taking great lengths to avoid settling on an actual story. It could be a play about the process of writing itself, the two men pitting their different styles against each other, the story seeking to explain how the man clearly seen as the lesser writer in their lifetimes became the one much more lauded down the centuries (a coda suggests Shakespeare planted avatars of Marlowe throughout his work.) At times it seems it's going to be about the two men's relationship - never shying away from the fact that there's a mutual attraction, it starts to ask if this might be turning into a love story.

The final act confirms that it was, of course, the political backdrop that Duffy Adams wanted to get back to, as the story could only end with Marlowe’s early death, but she’s skirted around it so much in the lead-up that it doesn’t feel earned. Gatwa and Bluemel are the draw for the audience and they deliver, but what the actual draw of the script was to them – other than giving them free rein to chew the scenery – is less obvious.

Also I’m willing to accept dramatic licence in having Harry the Sixth shown as the first play written because we know it as Part I, but don’t try to tell me Richard III was written years before, and is entirely unrelated to, Richard Duke of York.

Born With Teeth by Liz Duffy Adams is booking until the 1st of November at Wyndham’s Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.