Daniel Evans, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s co-artistic director, is to take the title role in the company’s production of Christopher Marlowe’s rarely performed tragedy Edward II.
This will be the first time Evans has appeared in a full acting role since he played Bobby in Stephen Sondheim’s Company at the Crucible in Sheffield in 2011. Evans’s acting credits for the RSC include Angelo in Measure for Measure and Posthumus in Cymbeline, both in 2003, and Flute in A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream and a citizen and a servant in Coriolanus, both in 1994.
Director Daniel Raggett said, “I’m thrilled and deeply privileged to be working with an incredible cast on Edward II. This major Elizabethan drama hasn’t been seen at the RSC for more than 30 years, and our production will breathe new life into it: honouring Marlowe’s razor-sharp writing while embodying everything that gives the original the propulsive energy of a thriller.
“A love story with a political edge, this 400-year-old play has plenty to say about the supposedly liberal and progressive times in which we now live. When King Edward wants to rule alongside the man he loves, how much change can the establishment tolerate and at what cost?”
Eloka Ivo will make his RSC debut as Gaveston, Edward’s lover. His credits include sculptor Ian in Backstairs Billy by Marcelo Dos Santos at the Duke of York's Theatre in 2024, Raheem in Danny Lee Wynter’s Black Superhero at the Royal Court Theatre in 2023 and Jim O'Connor in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie at the Royal Exchange Theatre in 2022.
Also making their RSC debuts are Ruta Gedmintas as Edward’s wife Queen Isabella and Enzo Cilenti as Mortimer who plots against the King.
Gedmintas appeared in Backbeat, adapted for the stage by Iain Softley and Stephen Jeffreys, at the Duke of York's Theatre in 2011, while Cilenti played Joe in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter at the Old Vic Theatre and Francesco in Berberian Sound Studio, based on the original motion picture screenplay, at the Donmar Warehouse, both in 2019.
The cast also features Jacob James Beswick (Lightborn), Michael Cusick (ensemble), Stavros Demetraki (Spencer), Emilio Doorgasingh (Pembroke), Amy Dunn (ensemble), Geoffrey Lumb (Warwick), Kwaku Mills (Baldock), Evan Milton (Lancaster), Christopher Patrick Nolan (Bishop of Coventry), Henry Pettigrew (Kent), Joseph Rowe (ensemble) and Neil Sheffield (ensemble).
Joining Raggett on the creative team are Leslie Travers (set and costume designer), Tim Lutkin (lighting designer), Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly (composers), Tingying Dong (sound designer), Anthony and Kel Matsena (movement directors), Kev McCurdy (fight director) and Julia Horan CDG (casting director).
Edward II will run in the Swan Theatre, Stratford between Friday 21 February and Saturday 5 April.