Review: Marthinus Basson’s striking staging of Die Fel Omstrede Kroon van Edward II en Gaveston, is a wow

I was riveted watching Marthinus Basson’s striking staging of Tom Lanoye’s play, Die Fel Omstrede Kroon van Edward II en Gaveston. This production is directed and designed by Basson. He has also translated the play into Afrikaans, from Lanoye’s Flemish.

Die Fel Omstrede Kroon van Edward II en Gaveston is a theatrical masterclass. Belgian Tom Lanoye has reimagined the play by Christopher Marlowe, The Troublesome and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud. Marlowe, a contemporary and rival of Shakespeare, died age 29, on May 30, 1593. There are many theories about his death. He may have died in a drunken fight. Some suggest that he was murdered because of his politics, because he was allegedly a spy. There was his alleged homosexuality. Never mind the speculation about his life and death, he certainly spoke to truth to power in his plays.

Tom Lanoye’s Die Fel Omstrede Kroon van Edward II en Gaveston is as I say a, masterclass, meshing together the hectic life of Edward II. The play is hectic- in a good way. It is brilliant theatre. The performances are excellent, with the ensemble cast riffing off each other and creating theatrical magic. The play is long. The first half is two hours. I often battle with long plays in terms of concentration, but this play held my attention all through, edge-of-the-seat.

Plot spoiler alert: At the start, we see the old king (André Roothman) dying, raging against his son and his lover Galveston. In the tragic and emotional end, we see Edward II (Edwin van der Walt) lose his crown, his family and his life. He is stripped of everything – physically and emotionally and ultimately dis-intermediated by his son (the crown prince- played by Caleb Payne). The use of nudity is brilliantly positioned to heighten the way Edward is cast off; flayed and left bare.  His nakedness is vividly emblematic of how he has been stripped of his identity – crown, sexuality. He has been stripped as a monarch, lover, husband and father.

The text is richly nuanced and layered. I would have lost the nuance, without the Afrikaans surtitles (excellently done, by the way). A joy for me was hearing the Afrikaans and then bouncing that off the English translation. Au revoir – “goodbye – until we meet again” (French but used in the English surtitles) is translated as totsiens in Afrikaans “until we meet again; goodbye.” It sounds more foreboding in Afrikaans than in English which is softer and has a lyrical quality. The Afrikaans is visceral and brutal and heightens the brutality of this play. Basson’s Afrikaans translation is astounding – bouncing off the excellent English surtitles. “Language and multiculturalism” fascinates Lanoye [https://esat.sun.ac.za/index.php/Tom_Lanoye] and in tandem with drilling deep into the performative expression of the actors, language is key to the rhythm and cadence of this production.

Die Fel Omstrede Kroon van Edward II en Gaveston pings off monarchies in our times- such as King Charles finally nailing the crown after the long reign of his mother and his own agonies with his first marriage to Diana, relinquishing his passion for Camilla- to please the monarchy. We see the wars for succession in politics and power and the tussle for power between the private and public. As they say: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” [Attributed to Lord Acton- the 19th century British politician]. Die Fel Omstrede Kroon van Edward II en Gaveston resonates loudly in contemporary times – when all sense of a moral compass is abandoned for power by politicians, monarchs and people of influence.

Basson’s conceptual set design, with mirrored screens/doors, charges the play with spatial depth (the space looks much bigger than it is) and reverberates with the sense of people mirroring each other – desires, truths and lies. Lines blur between image and what is real, imagined, psychosis, delusion. It is breathtaking – layering of language, mirroring of figures, soundscape, coupled with the knockout performances.

The entire cast is excellent. There is a tender, fierce and complex interplay between Edward and Gaveston. I loved Rolanda Marais as the Queen. Marais teases out tremendous humour in her reading of this role. She is flummoxed by the events but loves her husband and child and despite what others may think, she wants the best outcome. The queen is the only female in this mad house of alpha males. She is prey to their paternalistic scheming, vulnerable because of her status in society and ultimately expendable. Sadly, this clangs out loudly in our times as women continue to be manipulated, discarded and banished by unscrupulous men, doing anything to hold onto power. Die Fel Omstrede Kroon van Edward II en Gaveston is excellent, excellent theatre- a must-see. Wow.

✳ Featured image: Rolanda Marais and Edwin van der Walt, in Die Fel Omstrede Kroon van Edward II en Gaveston, directed and designed by Marthinus Basson. Pic: Hans van der Veen.