about production
Ominous reign and pathetic demise of an English king Edward II with a tragic fall of proud Mortimer, the life and death of Pairs Gaveston, Earl of Cornwal, the favourite of Edward II, which was publicly carried out by the servants of the honourable Earl of Pembrook.
Christopher Marlowe was two months older (as far as his birth) and 23 years younger (as far as his death) than Shakespeare. He was an extraordinary playwright, who can be evaluated only in Shakespearean terms. Shakespeare, however, cannot be evaluated in terms of Marlowe.
According to some Shakespeare experts, Richard III, the great drama of self-denial has overshadowed Edward II, also a great drama of self-denial.
Marlowe's Edward II is perhaps a poor man and a poor king, but his intense passion, from which stem dramatic disproportions, creates from him, to a degree (as a consequence of a useless selection) a mysterious being.
Being, which cannot find answers to the basic questions of human life and as a child, which passionately asks “impertinent” questions, he begins to look very similar to today's man, constantly attached by unbearable amount of information about the world.
He is unable to compromise nor evaluate things, he can only love and hate. And at the same time he manages tragically but admirably fulfil his „role” of a king.
With opened eyes and suffering he chooses and excepts death the same way as do his loyal servants who have joined him because of insatiability and thirst far power. His devotion, however, surpasses all interests – he, who betrays him, regrets his act, although he has benefited. Not because of that is Edward a good king. He is good king simply because he is human.
Edward seeks accomplices in his proteges. He cannot be a king, however, he cannot be a „non-king” either. Until the last moment he remains full of conflicts.
Christopher Marlowe, hit on the forehead allegedly by king's agent on a dark staircase of a pub, described in Edward II, the beauty of errors, the beauty of a fatal attraction to errors. His words pulsate inside us, like blood in veins.
András Forgacs
creators
director and stage set: Józef Ruszt
translation: András Forgách
script editing: Gyorgy Bohm, András Forgách
costumes: Judit Schaffer
assistant: András Tucsni
cast: Lajos es. Németh, Csaba Jakab, Zoltán Dózsa, József Kerekes, Tamás Dunaj, Lajos Kránitz, Peter Fustos, Karoly Nemcsák, László Gálfti, Zoltán Ráatóti, Virgie Horvát, Márta Egri.