ABSTRACT
In New York times review of theatre for a New Audience’s 2014 production of Tamburlaine, Ben Brantley calls the play “improbably enjoyable” in spite of the unapologetic and violent nature. Similarly, James Fitzgerald’s review of the Shakespeare’s Globe 2019 production of Edward II references Marlowe’s “entertaining horrible history”. Tamburlaine the great is, in many respects, a simpler play than Edward II, yet it is simultaneously much larger in scope and more grandiose. Whereas Edward’s conflict concerns England, Ireland, Scotland, and France, Tamburlaine remaps the globe with his conquest. While the way power, gender, and mad behavior combine in the Joe Exotic story parallels Marlowe’s Edward II in certain respects, comparing early modern and contemporary notions of sex and gender is always a precarious move. Elizabethan conceptions of gender, sex, desire, and how these factors do (not) attach to identity make a direct comparison between Edward II and contemporary queer figures unproductively anachronistic.
