How deeply autobiographical can a work be before it becomes unwise to reproduce? Further to that, is there anything more personal than a play literally set in the author’s subconscious mind?
The first revival of Tom Stuart’s play, After Edward, now showing at the Old Fire Station, inadvertently raises these questions.
After Edward has an extremely contextual backstory: actor and writer Tom Stuart was starring as the titular role in Marlowe’s Edward II at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre, and felt haunted by the parallels between his character’s fraught sexuality and his own identity as a 21st century gay man. Exploring those feelings resulted in companion piece After Edward - a deep dive into his own psyche, populated by queer icons of yore: Gertrude Stein, Quentin Crisp, Harvey Milk and more. The piece literally begins with ‘Edward’ falling onto the stage - ostensibly from the theatre above it - still in period regalia, unable to remember who he is or where he came from.
Now, the play is being revived, far from the candlelit oak of the Wanamaker, in the black-bricked box of the Old Fire Station stage. It is at times a clunky departure, although this is remedied somewhat by an excellent lead performance from Mark Fiddaman. As Edward, Fiddaman brings a naturalistic humanity to the role, delicately characterizing the lead as sharp and witty but deeply unsure.
Seemingly trapped onstage, Edward is soon joined by Gertrude Stein, wheeled in on a pink-carpeted toilet, and Quentin Crisp, perched on a swing. The three banter at length, drawn out further by the true-to-character droning on of Stein. This quickly takes on the feel of an in-joke, but not one that the audience is particularly included in. The pacing picks up a bit with the inclusion of Harvey Milk (a gleeful and moving impersonation by Megan Hiatt), megaphone in hand. Countering the cynical advice of Crisp and Stein with warmly galvanizing rhetoric, Milk asserts to Edward, ‘It’s not enough to be tolerated’, before paternally nicknaming him Eddie and recounting the many smutty joys of life on Castro Street.
Being queer in the 20th century means never being able to just ‘be’: the world is unfair and often cruel and these characters each offer a different perspective on the worldview needed to survive it - Individualist? Libertarian? Collectivist? This highlights the contradictions of the queer community: that we’re bound together by our difference, that after being met continuously with cruelty by society at large, keeping your own compassion and solidarity alive is both crucial and not always realistic. There are some deeply interesting points here. But said points are hammered home so many times, the text starts to spin its wheels, as though the playwright himself is as trapped as his leading man.
Thankfully, the story eventually regains momentum with the arrival of Edward Alleyn (a terrifically zippy and poised Niamh Simpson). Alleyn, likely the first person to portray Edward II is utterly bewildered by the current Edward’s angst, garnering the biggest laughs of the night.
Also great is Uttara Narayanan as Margaret Thatcher, the chief villain of the piece, played with a silky-soft menace and amusement at the chaos she’s wreaked, as Edward continuously tries to chase her from the stage.
At last, Edward’s charismatic exe, Billy (Alex King) arrives, dressed as Edward II’s own ruinous lover Gaveston. King brings a calm warmth to the role that compliments Fiddaman’s restless charm. It’s easy to see how these two men would have fallen in - and out - of love. Their exchange brings a grounding tenderness to all the absurdity and theoretical debate, which leads the audience in the play’s strongest scene, a litany of horror as we’re regaled with recollections of Section 28 and the AIDs Crisis. The stage is trashed with old copies of The Sun decrying the pathology of homosexuality. A gunshot wound blossoms red and wet on Milk’s chest. Edward speaks of being badly bullied for his perceived difference in school, and there is a heartwrenching parallel between those schoolyard thugs and society at large. Of their relationship, Billy recalls. ‘You always worried that you smelled. Like there was something inside you that was rotten’. By this point, I was sobbing in my seat, and I wasn’t the only one.
When Edward claims, in the first half of the play, that he is proud to be a gay man, we believe him. What After Edward beautifully illuminates is that someone can be comfortable with their sexuality itself and still be deeply damaged by the self-disgust and unbelonging they were made to feel for it. The half-life of shame is, all too often, forever, and no brave coming-out speech or dreamy boyfriend alone will change that. But it doesn’t need to be.
This all leads to a moving, if a tad cheesy, conclusion, a confrontation between Edward and his demons, and finishes with a confounding choice of closing number that added little to what had come before.
Ultimately, After Edward has the heart of a one-man fringe show, all self-discovery and recollections in turn both humorous and heartbreaking. It’s messy and chaotic and probably about thirty minutes too long. More should arguably have been done when repotting it from its original home to ensure it stands fully on its own. But, all that said, it also moved me and hit home for me, in places, far more than countless tighter and sleeker productions I’ve seen. It’s a bumpy ride - but one I’d take again in a heartbeat.
