The earliest surviving reference to Edward II is the registration for publication with the Stationers' Register on July 6, 1593, five weeks after Marlowe’s death. The earliest known printing, in 1594, claims that the play was originally performed by the Earl of Pembroke's Men. The play continued to be performed regularly until the Puritans closed England’s theaters in 1642, when Edward II disappeared from performance until the twentieth century. While scholars held Edward II in high regard, the frank depiction of the love between Edward and Gaveston made the play unstageable for centuries.

Christopher Marlowe

English director William Poel, whose influential Elizabethan Stage Society reintroduced the practice of performing Shakespeare’s plays uncut, produced Edward II in 1903. The play has been produced with increased regularity since the mid-1900s, most notably in Tony Robertson’s 1969 production starring Ian McKellen, and Gerald Murphy’s by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1990 with Simon Russell Beale. Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company presented Tamburlaine and Edward II in repertory in the 2007-08 season to inaugurate its new theater. The Robertson/McKellen production was adapted for a BBC movie and included a controversial kiss, the first between men on British television.

The play has also inspired other transgressive artists. Bertolt Brecht used it as a source for his 1923 play The Life of Edward II of England. The Brecht play focuses less on the individuals than on the failures of the ruling class. An early work, it was instrumental in the development of Brecht’s theory of epic theater. Avant-garde English filmmaker Derek Jarman’s 1991 film adaptation uses anachronistic combinations of modern and medieval costumes and props. The film emphasizes the gay relationship between Edward and Galveston and the timeless struggle for gay rights.

– Contributed by the CST Education Department