It is late afternoon on May 30 in 1593 at the house of Eleanor Bull that is both a tavern and rooming house in Deptford, England. A small group of men meet to deal with a problem one of them has caused with the Privy Council of Elizabeth I; that man is Christopher Marlowe. It has been decided that Marlowe, the man, must die, but Marlowe, the poet and writer, must live. How this is to be accomplished is what we are about to learn, and, importantly, the reasons. Peter Hodges has written and directed a thought-provoking comedy, Marlowe’s Fate, A Comedy, that deftly explores the ending of the career of Christopher Marlowe, the poet and playwright, and the beginning of the writing “career” of one William Shaxper or whatever the man’s name was really. This play showcase has been mounted in a small “black-box” theater with a bare-bones set and costumes true to the period of the story. The costumes help tremendously in setting the time of the action and help mitigate the sparseness of the sets. Regardless, the story being told is an important one in the long-running battle over who really wrote the works of Shakespeare; Christopher Marlowe or a man called William Shakespeare.
Hodges takes us through some critical moments in the basic history of the end of Marlowe and the beginning of Shaxper. It is important to understand that the issue of who really wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare is not a minor one, and understanding the moments leading up to and the possible beginning moments of Shakespeare’s career are worthy of note. The ensemble play multiple roles mostly done well but with a few wobbles. Two performers stand out in their performances by putting on three characters each. Sarah Kiefer and Len Rella do exceptional work in inhabiting the characters they are depicting. Kiefer plays the three key women in the story, Elenor Bull, Jacqueline Field, and Judith Quiney, Shakespeare’s daughter, as if we are watching three different actors. Len Rella likewise handles three key roles in his portrayals of Nicholas Keres, Richard Field, and Ben Jonson. Rella wears his characters so convincingly that he to gives the sense that there are three different actors in the roles. The set-up is that Marlowe is to be killed after a dispute at the tavern. He is actually to be quickly taken to a boat and out to a ship that will send him to Europe and exile with orders to never return. The plotters will substitute the body of a recently hung convict and the Queen’s coroner will conduct the inquest and certify that Christopher Marlowe is indeed dead. The next stage of the plot is to find a way for Marlowe’s writings to continue to be published and presented under an assumed name. It is at this point that William Shaxper becomes the conduit through which Marlowe’s works will be disseminated. His name is altered to Shakespeare, and his association with the published works is handled in an interesting pattern-breaking scene: a “Punch and Judy” show with Marlowe and Shakespeare having a boxing match while exchanging point and counterpoint as to how Shakespeare was not the author of any of the works attributed to him. This, at first appearance, seems to be a serious departure from the story arc but turns out to be a clever way for Hodges to introduce some of the arguments concerning Marlowe as the actual author of most (if not all) of the works attributed to Shakespeare. It is important for this information to be presented, but it would be difficult to introduce it in exposition since Marlowe and Shakespeare never met and the material does not lend itself to dramatic presentation. The key for this scene to work is the clarity of the actors’ presentation and the speed of the delivery. Unfortunately, the delivery by the Shakespeare puppet was not clear, and all of the dialogue was too fast. This play provides a solid grounding in the origins of the questions about the true author of Shakespeare’s work. Hodges has done very careful work in uncovering some of the issues surrounding the questions of authorship and delivers these issues in an entertaining and insightful way. It is definitely worth making an effort to see it when it comes to your area of the world, and if you are interested in theater and theater history, it is definitely worth the effort to explore the notes that Hodges has put in the program of which I am sure will be in all the programs that accompany this play, wherever and whenever it is produced. I will be remiss if I do not point out the work of three members of the production team. The sets by Valeria Haedo are sparse but, in combination with the excellent period-style costumes created by Elizabeth Bove, effectively provide a sense of the locales being depicted in the story. Ben Young III’s lighting design makes the sparseness of the sets of less importance and also helps move the action in support of the story. Peter Hodges’s direction is very good, delivering a provocative and entertaining view of the story behind the “True Body of Shakespeare.”
