Newly crowned Executive Director John Alexander, Director Richard Baird and the Diversionary Theatre are bringing to the stage Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II, which opens this weekend.
It is arguably the largest cast Diversionary has ever had in their space and according to Alexander it is the first time a classical piece has been done at Diversionary.
“Richard Baird had long wanted to produce Edward II – written by Marlowe, a contemporary and sometimes rival of Shakespeare – at Diversionary. Our Managing Director Bret Young has worked for years to try to find the right time to include it in our season. Diversionary has not taken on a classic or production of this scope and we thought it was time to try.”
While it was not something Alexander can credit himself with bringing to Diversionary, he is thrilled that it is a part of the season since it is “a departure from our usual fare” and it also gave him the opportunity to work with Baird.
“[Richard] is an amazing, well respected classical actor and director, well known to San Diego audiences,” said Alexander. “He really championed Diversionary doing this piece, so the production is very much his. This fits with Diversionary’s renewed focus on creative artists – directors and authors who want to expand or develop their craft on the Diversionary stage. In planning future seasons, I’ve been using this as an example when I speak to directors we want to work with, asking them, ‘What do you want to do at Diversionary.’ And, frankly, we are trying – with North Coast Rep and others – to keep Richard in San Diego; he recently relocated to Chicago, but we are lobbying to get him to remain part of San Diego’s very talented community of theater artists.”
Baird was last seen on the Diversionary stage in a production co-produced with Backyard Productions in 2005 and has been a familiar face in San Diego theater for years.
“My last production at Diversionary Theatre was as an actor,” said Baird. “I played the Devil (Herr Gottfried Swetts) in Tony Kushner’s Bright Room Called Day. I have a long relationship with San Diego theater. I founded Poor Players Theatre Company in 2001, a company dedicated to the works of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. I also have had a long relationship with North Coast Repertory Theatre.”
Baird’s take on Edward II may not be looked at as anything different than how it may have been originally produced many, many years ago, but given how often producers and directors try to update many classics his take could be looked at as something new.
“When presenting a classical text with a new group, I always think of it as being a brand new experience. Ross Hellwig (our Edward) will be very different from Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen. Ian McDiarmid and Joseph Fiennes (other famous Edwards) and that’s part of what makes the experience so special. This is also a piece that has been produced frequently in modern dress, so our decision to set it in the period that it historically took place (late 12 and early 13th century England) is fairly different!”
Baird also confesses to having an “obsessive love” with Elizabethan and Jacobean theater, which is what drew him to the piece. That, and how the play is about power, sex and identity and how people allow their personal lives to take over their professional responsibility.
Both Alexander and Baird agree that in casting Edward they were very lucky to have cast such a talented group of men and women, which made the process of such a large piece easier to deal with, well sort of.
“I wouldn’t call it an easy process,” said Baird. “This is a very large play. But I have a wonderful cast and that certainly makes things easier. I have [also] worked with Ross Hellwig (Edward II) previously at Kingsmen Shakespeare and Max Macke and John Tessmer have both been in many Poor Players shows. So there are old faces and new faces, and I think that is wonderful!”
Oddly enough fitting such a large cast on the Diversionary stage was not really one of Baird’s challenges.
“In some ways that was the least challenging part of this process. When your stage is pretty full with five people, going over that amount leads one to say, ‘Well yes, you have to go over there. There is nowhere else to go!’ But jokes aside, it has been thrilling to have this many bodies on this stage.”
While Edward II may not outwardly appear to have gay overtones, Alexander explained how he felt the piece would resonate with the gay community.
“Edward II is rather infamous for choosing his passion for another man over his responsibilities as King of England. There is a lot of debate as to whether this is historically accurate (but more consensus that Edward II was one of the worst king’s in British history). But that in itself is an interesting point. The definition of what was ‘gay’ and the norms of male relationships would have been very different then. It’s interesting that for the most part we are finally evolving into a world where we don’t have to make those choices any more. Beyond the ‘was he or wasn’t he’ debate (and all of the text and interpretations make it pretty clear to me that Edward II was hot for Gaveston), there is the never ending story of powerful men who forsake their responsibilities by not being able to ‘keep it in their knickers.’”
Edward II opens Sept. 8 and runs through Oct. 2. Tickets can be purchased online by going to the Diversionary Theatre Web site at diversionary.org or by calling 619-220-0097.
