After waiting, as a Christopher Marlowe fan, more than 30 years to see his masterpiece, I still haven't seen it. And I don't mean that the TNC has only made the usual mistake of uniting Marlowe's two very different plays, Tamburlaine I and II. I don't mean only that the translation misses Marlowe's mastery of the mighty line. Truly, the production makes it hard even to identify the hero. At first I thought he was a blond supporting player, who had dignity. But no, it was a punk rocker-type skipping forth to be the shepherd whom Marlowe meant to become a Herculean hero. Bo enunciates well, and Julie Pilod bears up well under his love as Zenocrate, even after having been brutally deprived of blouse and maidenhood.
The opening scene, with Mycete crawling under the robes he will give away too willingly, is the only original and effective one. That in which Tamerlan uses the conquered Bajazet as a footstool lacks the intended horror. And what's the reason for having him caged by his wife (who moves a table over him and herself to represent the imprisonment) of all people? Why does Axel Bogousslavsy have to play ten different kings and advisors, other than to make them mere tenpins for Tamerlan to bowl over? Why is the sparring match between Zenocrate and Bajazet's wife made into a cat fight? I'd feel sorry for the actors, but they are complicit in what director Sastre is foisting on audiences, along with a plethora of smoke.
What an insult to the theatre of Jean Vilar; how apparent that Chaillot no longer is the TNP, for there's nothing "populaire" to see in a work of diSastre!
