What happened to the Mighty Line?: Recent Marlowe Productions

In a survey of Marlowe productions Lois Potter considers the problem of the grand style for a theatrical tradition that has recently been taking an increasingly realistic view of 'Marlowe our Contemporary'. The 'mighty line' seems to have been an embarrassment for many directors of Tamburlaine and Edward II. At the same time, it seems to be assumed that Marlowe lines are interchangeable from play to play. When Maurice Evans incorporated a scene from Edward II in his televised Richard II (1953) he clearly assumed that no one would recognize his source. Richard Burton's 1967 film of Doctor Faustus brought in quotations from other Marlowe plays in the scene with the Seven Deadly Sins. Intertextual references have become more explicit: in 2008, a Doctor Faustus in Berkeley used its Chorus to gloss the Latin phrases and to surround the apparition of Helen of Troy with quotations from other authors, including Shakespeare.