Tamburlaine, Parts I and II. Theatre for a New Audience (see Off Broadway). By Christopher Marlowe. Directed by Michael Boyd. With John Douglas Thompson. Running time: 3hrs 30mins. One intermission.
Tamburlaine, Parts I and II: In brief
Classical-theater star John Douglas Thompson (Othello) plays the fearsome Central Asian tyrant of Christopher Marlowe's two-part 1587 epic, presented by director-adapter Michael Boyd as a single 3.5-hour play. Eighteen other actors fill out the cast of Theatre for a New Audience's ambitious production.
Tamburlaine, Parts I and II: Theater review by Sandy MacDonald
John Douglas Thompson is a genius at portraying titans midfall: Othello, Macbeth, Louis Armstrong in decline. But even he can’t put over Tamburlaine, Marlowe’s 1587 saga of a would-be world conqueror. Wielding his tongue as mightily as his sword (his oratory sways several opponents), Tamburlaine rampages on, his comeuppance a long time coming. It’s not until the very end (director Michael Boyd has cobbled two long plays into one even longer) that this self-anointed “scourge of God” is brought up short by his own mortality.
For practical reasons, Boyd has chosen to distribute 60 roles among 19 actors—fuel for confusion. Tamburlaine’s prisoner turned wife (Merritt Janson), for example, is no sooner embalmed—the better to keep the warrior company on the road—than she reappears as the vengeful son of the slain Turkish emperor Bajazeth (imposing Chukwudi Iwuji).
Vignettes involving victims linger in memory long after the literal buckets of blood. You won’t soon forget the caged Bajazeth, taunted with the prospect of making a meal of his wife (Patrice Johnson Chevannes). So enjoy Paul Lazar’s clownish curtain-opener as a dopey king—among the first of countless casualties—while you can.—Theater review by Sandy MacDonald
THE BOTTOM LINE War, although hell, can also prove tedious.