Tonight J.Chu and I went to see
Tamburlaine at the Shakespeare Theatre.
Tamburlaine was Christopher Marlowe's first play, and they say it was super successful and influential and stuff. It's not performed very often now, at least in part because it is totally dull. It's a million hours long and covers a lot of Middle Eastern geography, and in pretty much every scene, Tamburlaine shows up, declines to show mercy, kills everybody, and destroys the city. By the end J.Chu and I were like, could the gods please SMITE this guy already? The production was beautiful, but just couldn't make up for the fact that people hadn't figured out how to write interesting plays yet in 1587.
On the upside, the Shakespeare Theatre's new hall is beautiful. I look forward to seeing many more plays there, although I can't pretend to be 100% enthusiastic about the next one:
Edward II, by...Christopher Marlowe. Sigh. It's good for me, right? Character-building?
3 comments:
At least Edward II was his last play, so maybe he'd gotten better since then.
(I didn't know that off the top of my head or anything--I think I read it in the Post a little while ago).
oooh, look at that glass . . . ::architecture nerd emerges::
the only good things i've heard about this instance of the play is the physical production and Avery Brooks. ::trekkie emerges::
The new theater looks brilliant. Thanks for sharing.
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