Marlowe lives again at the Rose theatre!

Aline writes: We’ve been seeing a lot of plays since we have been staying in London over the last few months. One of the most interesting was a compilation of Marlowe’s plays in the Rose, London's first Elizabethan theatre. Right now the Rose site is a half dug-out archaeological excavation, and they are trying to raise money to fully excavate it. It was discovered in the 1980's when they demolished a building and found the remains under the basement. It's just around the corner from the new Globe and the old bear gardens site.

It was an interesting place to see a play – there was a wooden deck with folding seats, set at the edge of a big pit that has water in it to protect the Rose foundation timbers until they can be excavated. So the players had to work around the edge of the pond on very uneven bare dirt. Of course there was no heating, so we watched with our coats, hats, scarves, and gloves on. The play itself was put together by a Marlowe scholar – called A Devilish Exercise, it was comprised of parts of Dr. Faustus, who appears as a character and watches parts of other Marlowe plays such as Dido, Queen of Carthage; Tamburlaine; and Edward II. And of course the staging was quite innovative, as it would have to be given what they had to work with. It was very moving to hear the actual words spoken in the same place that they were 400 years ago. Needless to see, the first thing we did afterwards was go get something hot to drink!