Eduardo II

(2024)

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) is, arguably, the creator of English theatre of his time, thus ushering in one of the most fabulous periods in the history of Western imagination. One cannot think of Shakespeare without Marlowe. His early and mysterious disappearance (he was murdered in Deptford in the midst of a suspicious fight over a bill in a tavern) leaves the field sown and free for those who survived him. His plays (Tamerlane, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and the one at hand) were resounding public successes.
This play, which we bring back to the stages of Buenos Aires, is the first to place homosexuality front and center.
Edward II is an excessive being, driven in an extraordinary way by his desires, fascinated by the possibilities that power offers, and also a ruler fully aware of his responsibilities. But he wants to realize the utopia of combining the good of the kingdom and personal happiness, governing for the common good from his own personal desire. And when the demands of one and the other conflict, tragedy ensues.
Edward II's rule is historically considered a failure, but we might be suspicious of this assertion and argue that his government merely exposes a system that fails to recognize difference. How much does his downfall owe to his own mistakes, how much to the fierce opposition he unleashed among the most conservative sectors of the nobility and clergy, and how much to the contradictions of the society of his time? The story of Edward II and his favorite, Gaveston, stages the utopia/dystopia of a hypothetical queer reign: what unruly forces are set in motion, what forms of happiness emerge, what catastrophes are unleashed when what was previously marginal attains the centrality of power?

Carlos Gamerro, Ezequiel Lozano & Alejandro Tantanian

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Photos: Carlos Furman

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