"We aren't citizens we're subjects," Will tells us early on, explaining that Elizabethan England is a totalitarian state ruled by fear. Adams writes not with a pen so much as a razor blade and the play cuts to the bone as Kit and Will trade barbs, ambitions and, ultimately, places in a history play that rewrites our understanding of these two figures. The actors handle the play's delicious language, including rhymed and blank verses plus snippets of Shakespearean sonnets, with aplomb. Melrose, who staged the world premiere of "Teeth" last spring with the same actors at Houston's Alley Theatre, where he is the artistic director, draws magnetically arresting performances from actors Matthew Amendt and Dylan Godwin Their Kit and Will are men in opposite phases of the moon - one waning, the other waxing. And costumer Alejo Vietti gets it down to the details: Marlowe's jacket includes golden zippers while Shakespeare's doublet and half-unzipped jacket makes it look like he has been cut open. His production takes place in Michael Locher's simple, geometric set with a long, almost Putin-esque table (the show happens over the plague years, so these two may have presaged the Russian leader's comically long meeting tables).Ĭarolina Ortiz Herrera neon-like lighting sets the mood and lifts the performances of the two actors. Melrose meets Adams' wittily imaginative script with surprises of his own. The competition draws them closer, and that leads to a complicated desire to both consume and extinguish each other.ĭirector Rob Melrose's captivating production grabs you by the throat and rarely lets up. You might not see sparks flying off the Guthrie Theater's McGuire Proscenium Stage as the competition heats up between the two greatest writers of the Elizabethan age, but you can feel the heat of their jabs and parries.Ĭhristopher "Kit" Marlowe and William "Will" Shakespeare go at it with metaphorical rapiers in "Born with Teeth," Liz Duffy Adams' 90-minute one-act that reimagines the men in a literary life-and-death cage match.
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