Edward II at The Olivier

Mmmmm, Edward II at The Olivier.  Where does one start?  I did enjoy it up to a point.  The interpretation is succinct, the acting, in the main, very good, and there are some inspirational touches.  The problem is that the director, Joe Hill-Gibbins seems somewhat unsure as to where his production is going, whilst trying a little bit too hard to be clever.  Some of his bright ideas work, others most definitely do not.  One of the main no no’s is the casting of a small adult female actress as the young Prince Edward.  Sporting a page boy wig, grey flannel shorts and blazer, Bettrys Jones so resembles Wee Jimmie Krankie that her first entrance causes the first of several bouts of uproarious laughter.  More follows when the sylph-like actress Vanessa Kirby playing Queen Isabella picks up her rather tall “child” and proceeds to carry him around, long legs dangling.  Bizarre.

Almost as strange are the costumes, ranging from period long gold robes, leather kilts and helmets to skinny jeans and sharp suit with stiletto heels.  The latter outfit is worn by Kent, who in this version is Edward II’s sister, rather than brother. 

The staging, too, is ‘off the wall’.  The unpainted plywood of the set doesn’t attempt to conceal the backstage area, whilst there are two, what turns out to be screens to either side of the stage.  These screens serve two purposes.  One, to inform us with captions as to what will occur in each scene and two, to portray on live video what is happening backstage and outside on the National Theatre’s concrete balcony.  This footage works well when giving us close-ups of the various characters, especially that of Edward’s face during his imprisonment, but not so well when, before the cameras are switched off, we get a swaying view of the stage’s floor.  Is this meant to happen?  And can someone please explain to me why the on stage pianist plays the hokey-cokey to mark the young Prince Edward’s victory over his father on the battlefield.

The main plus of Jo Hill-Gibbins’s production is the casting of John Hefferman as Edward II, Kyle Soller as his lover Gaveston and to a slightly lesser extent, Vanessa Kirby as Queen Isabella.  Hefferman gives us a petulant, but tortured soul who, despite his wanton disregard for Queen, son and country, somehow manages to illicit our sympathy.  When he gets his final comeuppance via a red hot poker, the theatre is filled with genuine apprehension and terror.  The fact that Hefferman speaks Marlow’s poetic language so well highlights the jangly discrepancies of such lines as “I’ll call you back” delivered by one of the nobles talking on the telephone on hearing of Gaveston’s return.  But returning to the positives.  Despite Kyle Soller using his mother tongue, which is a little disconcerting, he really does make a chilling Gaveston whose mercurial personality we believe is capable of doing anything at any time.  He arrives on the scene somewhat athletically, clambering catlike from the Olivier Circle via one of the handrails.  Because of this it’s probably a good thing that he hasn’t been clothed in period garb.  The skinny jeans are much safer.  Vanessa Kirby, on the other hand, is clothed at one point in a red slinky cocktail dress, with semi-permanent “fag” in one hand and sloshing champagne glass in the other.

One can only wonder what Christopher Marlow himself would think about this production of his play.  One would imagine he was highlighting how a tragic hero is destroyed by erotic obsessions, whereas you could say that this version is showing how a play’s dramatic tension is somewhat diminished by

gimmickry.