Richmond Shakespeare’s Born With Teeth
Richmond Shakespeare took on Liz Duffy Adams’ Born With Teeth and won. Holy shit it’s good.
In this two-man show, Avery Michael Johnson and James Murphy (Christopher “Kit” Marlowe and William Shakespeare, respectively) pushed, pulled, tugged, and sawed at the play with confidence and intimacy. It’s well worth taking in and I highly recommend it.
For context, the play imagines the shared improvised workspace of two soon-to-be titans of prose collaborating on the theatrical trilogy, Henry VI Parts 1 – 3. Marlowe’s the preening bigshot. Will is the undeniably gifted but earthbound aspirant. Threy tumble and stomp a verbal dance of baiting, flirtation, philosophizing, and risky outspokenness on the violent powers that be in late 16th Century London. What they can’t say in their natural voices they imbue into the characters they imagine on the pages they write together. Their conceived villains draw their audience’s empathy – because in their time, in WIll and Kit’s world, that’s who they are. Freethinking, loud, lovers of love in a society bent towards cruelty. Sound familiar?
Andrew Gall directs Born With Teeth with an unseen touch, which is quite a bit harder than “putting your stamp” on something. Johnson and Murphy are either the most rehearsed actors ever or are just in supernatural sync with the play and each other. Johnson’s Marlowe is lascivious, loud, contemptuous of tradition, reckless in word, and lusty in deed. Murphy’s Shakespeare has the pragmatism of a long-game winner with the wit of a, well, Shakespeare. While their natures see them at odds, the magnetism of their brilliances – rhetorical and physical – draw them closer to a partnership of blurred professional lines. I’d have to credit Avery Michael Johnson’s scene chewing charisma on a balanced scale with James Murphy’s restraint and patience. Papers fly, books are tossed, and a beat is never missed.
The choreography centers around an unmoving set – a long conference table with a dozen stools. It’s used as a grandstand and an obstacle to great effect. The audience is seated on either of the long sides of the table, at eye level. One of the beautiful things about theaters without a fixed stage is you can force your audience into a perspective of your choosing. It’s not often you get to arrange your players in multiple hierarchical positions in relation to the viewer. One can’t imagine a show where Shakespeare and Marlowe dissect each others’ work, intentions, and innuendos without a sense of wonder. The stage design, aided by great blocking, forces you to incline your gaze up to receive grand proclamations and at eye level to absorb humility and uncertainty.
- The play itself is a new work whose world premiere happened only in 2022. It pulls few punches to fit its undercurrent themes but allows the audience to fully enjoy the characters first. It does in no way hide its directionality. Both playwrights are fleshed out to supersede any ‘message’ we are supposed to take home with us, but when the message needs to hit, it slaps hard.
The dialogue is sharp and deft. The pairs’ intimacies are believable, enjoyable, and palpable from the first scene to the last. The emerging consequences of each players’ discretion or lack thereof take on a looming inevitable threat whose resolutions are writ in history – but shock nonetheless. By the third act, Marlowe and Shakespeare have – dammit, I gotta stop. I’ll give away the whole thing. I’ll sum up…
Nothing makes me happier than being able to heartily recommend a work of inspired construction. I thrill at the idea of having my attention completely stolen by art – given back to me changed, even if just a little bit. I’m grateful for the command of the stage this production has in spades. The audience’s ovation at the end of the ripping 90-minute show was as authentic as praise gets. Strong bravos again for the company as a whole. I’d go see it again if someone wants to come with.
I mean that. Hit me up.
Purchase tickets HERE.
Born With Teeth
Dominion Energy Center’s Gottwald Playhouse
January 25 – February 11, 2024
After a successful run at the Guthrie Theatre, the brand new play Born With Teeth by Liz Duffy Adams receives its East Coast premiere at the Gottwald in January. An aging authoritarian ruler, a violent police state and a restless, polarized people seething with paranoia: It’s a dangerous time for poets. Two of them – the great Christopher (Kit) Marlowe and the up-and-comer Will Shakespeare – meet in the back room of a pub to collaborate on a history play cycle, navigate the perils of art under a totalitarian regime and flirt like young men with everything to lose. One of them may well be the death of the other.
