Graham Brown, one of Hoboken’s resident actors/directors, didn’t start out to act in and direct a 50-minute version of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward the Second, he more or less stumbled over an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
“I went to The Theatre Studio to audition for a part as an actor,” he said. “Then I noticed that they needed directors for a series for the British Cavalcade Retrospective. I had an interest in Edward II for a long time. People said it couldn’t be done. I thought I could do it.”
So he signed up, walked across the street to the bookstore and brought every book he could find on directing.
It is a production put on in collaboration of his production company, Trip, Nada 45, the Theatre Studio, and the Museum of Modern Art, and is one of series of plays in the Cavalcade.
Brown was no novice, as an actor, he has appeared in productions ranging from MacBeth to the lead role in the first American production of A Clockwork Orange, and in a host of New York venues from Expanded Arts and The Mint Space on a local level and from Amnesty International to Canterbury Theatre outside of Chicago. He has what he calls a very brief role in Woody Allen¹s New Fall Project due out sometime next year. As a director his credits include Sex, Gods & Violent Happiness, Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grille, David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity In Chicago; as well as several of his original pieces.
His role in A Clockwork Orange had a flavor he said he found in Marlowe’s play Edward the Second.
“Because he was king, Edward believed he could do anything he wanted to do, and the more he was told he couldn’t, the more obsessive he became about it.”
According to the play’s promotional material, Edward the Second is a tragedy built upon the politics of sexual rejection and magnetism, of naked ambition, of sadism, of willful selfishness, and of miscalculation which ultimately leads to civil chaos. Edward’s obsession with his male lover Gaveston, which he attempted to preserve at all costs, clearly accounts for his failure as a king and culminates in his gruesome murder, making him finally a martyr to his passion.
Brown calls it a psychological drama., and through which Brown explores Marlowe’s “obvious concern with sexuality” without destroying the plays integrity as a historical tragedy.
Marlowe, or sometimes known as Kit, pioneered the use of blank verse in English, encouraging William Shakespeare to try it. He was the first to write a genuine tragedy in English, again paving the way for Shakespeare. Some scholars believe that Marlowe, who reportedly died in a bar fight, faked that death in order to avoid prosecution and took on the identity of William Shakespeare. Brown said he had pondered the Marlowe play for years.
“People said it couldn’t be performed, I thought I could do it,” he said, calling his effort a deconstruction. Brown took five acts and 23 characters and boiled them down into a one-act drama with only five actors. “None of the actors are playing multiple roles.”
In order to maintain loyalty to the original play in condensation of the play, he did extensive research, reading critical essays on Marlowe and the play.
The play has several parts, a kind of series of resolutions, one part ending with the death of Gaveston, one of the principal characters. while the plot is picked up later with a Gaveston-like character, this version basically avoids this allowing for a natural condensation of the play.
The cast, includes Adrien D¹Amore as Gaveston, an actor who has performed at the Soho Rep in Arthur Giron’s A Death of Wealth, Moment of Truth at Manhattan playhouse, Summer & Smoke at the Roundabout Theatre and Being at Home with Claude on Christopher Street., and on the West Coast with the Magic Theatre, and the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.
Jamie Forehand, who plays the role of Kent in this production, holds an MFA from the FSU/ASOLO Conservatory. Jeni Henaghan, who plays Isabella, member of the William Esper Studios and The Inverse Theatre, has played numerous productions including the role of Hey Baby in Sex Toys & Subway Stories. She has also appeared on the television show, Law and Order. C..J. Tucker , who plays Mortimer, has performed in Fool For Love and was cast member developing the Drama Department¹s Uncle Tom¹s Cabin, and has played in several regional productions including Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Romeo & Juliet.
Because the production he wanted was very cinematic, Brown said a music score plays as important a role as any of the actors,, noting that the original music by Billy Atwell, of Shirley Temple of Doom, gives the play a contemporary feel.
“I met Billy Atwell in a coffee store in Hoboken and we struck up a conversation, and from that he developed a sound track.”
This heavily percussive music, flavored by wailing strands and heavier passages of guitar, bells, keyboard, rises and falls with the drama to enhance the emotional impact.
Brown said the whole production tests out the mathematics of his drama, working through the relationship of text, actor and audience in cinematic way.
Edward the Second will play at Nada 45, 445 W. 45th Street in Manhattan from Jan. 28 to Feb. 13. Tickets are $12. Performances are Thursday through Sunday, at 8 p.m. For more information or to make reservation call (212) 388-2946.