Currently playing to enthusiastic reviews at London’s Wyndham Theatre, Born With Teeth imagines a historic moment in playwriting in which Liz Duffy Adams illuminates how history can be presented from a queer perspective, while revealing precisely how a play actually functions.
Starring Edward Bluemel as the Bard and Ncuti Gatwa as his contemporary Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, Adams’ play imagines the process of the two co-authoring Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3 – which historically have always been attributed solely to Shakespeare.
As the programme note makes clear, linguistic analysis points to Marlowe very likely having contributed to these plays – though of course, there is no hard evidence for the conversations that take place in Adams’ Elizabethan writers’ room.
