Christopher Marlowe was once a staple of British theatre but has become an ephemeral figure, with his plays produced only intermittently. Marlowe is often better known for his dramatic 1593 stabbing than for his literary innovations. A West End production, Born With Teeth, will star Ncuti Gatwa as Marlowe and Edward Bluemel as William Shakespeare, portraying Marlowe as sexy and brilliant. The play teases collaboration on parts of the Henry VI trilogy, proposes a possible romantic relationship between the playwrights, and even suggests Shakespeare's involvement in Marlowe's murder. Past works similarly stage Marlowe as a charismatic rival to Shakespeare, creating audience irony about Shakespeare's later fame.
For a limited season this autumn, Christopher Marlowe will become a star of the London stage again. Enjoy it while you can, for Marlowe has become an ephemeral figure in Britain's national culture. His plays, once staples, are now produced only intermittently, if at all. Today, Marlowe is probably better known for his dramatic death, stabbed in a London riverside tavern, than for anything he wrote or for being the literary pioneer that he was.
Here too, Marlowe is the more charismatic figure, while Shakespeare struggles in his shadow. It is Marlowe who suggests that Shakespeare, searching for an analogy to start his new love sonnet, should compare his love not to an autumn morning but to a summer's day, and Marlowe, too, who suggests that Juliet would be a better name for Romeo's beloved than Shakespeare's proposed Ethel.
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