Tamburlaine the Great Presented by Theatre for a New Audience at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Brooklyn, November 2014 to January, 2015 (2015)

Edited and Directed by Michael Boyd. Designed by Tom Piper. Lighting by Matthew Richards. Choreographed by Sam Pinkleton. Music by Arthur Solari. Sound by Jane Shaw. Starring John Douglas Thompson. With John Douglas Thompson (Tamburlaine), Paul Lazar (Mycetes/Sultan/Almeda/Amasia), Saxon Palmer (Cosroe, Sigismund/Frederick), Steven Skybell (Meander/Basso/Gov of Damascus/ Baldwin/Perdicas/Physcian), Andrew Hovelson (Theridamas), Tom O'Keefe (Ortygius/Morocco/Frederick), James Udom (Ceneus/Barbary/Calyphas), Oberon K.A. Adjepong (Menaphon/Argier/Captain), Merritt Janson (Zenocrate/Callapine), Keith Randolph Smith (Techelle), Carlo Alban (Usumcasane), Matthew Amendt (Agydas/Arabia/Natolia), Vasile Flutur (Suceavus/Spy/Barbary/Celebinus), Chukwudi Iwuji (Bajazeth/Trebizon), Caroline Hewitt (Anippe/Virgin), Patrice Johnson Chevannes (Zabina/Syria), Nilanjana Bose (Edea/Virgin/Olypia), Zachary Infante (Magnetes,Amyras), Ian Saint-Germain (Young Callapine/Captain's Son).Director Michael Boyd's Tamburlaine the Great was a bloody massacre, at once horrifying and dangerously alluring. It was a particularly unique experience to attend a performance of this conflation of Marlowe's two-part Tamburlaine (1590) during a time when the president of the United States can justify military deployments to Iraq and Syria not as 'war' but as 'counter-terrorism operations'. And what better place to see such a performance than in New York, a city very much forged by its strength and perseverance in the face of terrorist attacks. In his revival of Tamburlaine, however, Boyd wisely drove the focus away from any commentary on religious extremism. Despite proclaiming himself the 'terror of the world' (Part I, 1.2.38),1 Tamburlaine's rhetorical prowess and decidedly atheistic views were tempered by actor John Douglas Thompson's confident and electrifying performance. This powerful and surprisingly limber three-hour play managed to implicate the audience in the protagonist's actions, reminding us that progress is often made not over peaceful treaties but on the bloody remains of those who have fought with (and against) us on the battlefield.Theatre for a New Audience has aimed to 'develop and vitalize the performance and study of Shakespeare and classic drama' since 1979.2 The company has undoubtedly relied on an audience familiar with Shakespeare in particular and the early modern period in general. Nonetheless, their modernized Elizabethan courtyard stage at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center seems designed to attract an audience interested in experimental and daring performances. Tamburlaine's minimal staging took advantage of this set-up: the only permanent fixture were large, plastic curtains hung over the back entrance, poised on the entryway to a post-modern crime scene. Other props and set pieces were brought in by the actors during each scene. The stage felt at once bare and porous, ready to become a palace or a battleground as needed, but never to be cleared of the blood that was shed relentlessly throughout the play.Boyd's staging choices helped build a striking image for the end of Part I, which in this performance served as the climax for the story preceding the intermission. Bajazeth, a Turkish Emperor and prisoner of war in Tamburlaine's castle, decides to end his life by bashing his head against the cage in which Tamburlaine has been keeping him. The scene, along with other similarly graphic deaths in the play, was emptied of its shock value by featuring a young boy-in some scenes appearing as Callapine, in others, such as this one, representing a literal harbinger of death-who poured a bucket of blood over Bajazeth's head. The result was the opposite of comical: no one, least of all the child, could be spared the violence of this moment. The audience was confronted with a slow-moving pool of blood as it mixed with the blood lefton stage from previous deaths. In a matter of minutes, the bodies of Bajezeth, his wife Zabina, and the King of Arabia crowded the stage, forcing Tamburlaine and his men to literally step over dead bodies as they arrived fresh from another victory. …