Adapted by Ng Choon Ping from the original by Christopher Marlowe
‘I mean to be a terror to the world’
Yellow Earth presents Christopher Marlowe’s thrilling, controversial and compelling masterpiece, Tamburlaine. The story of a lowly shepherd who rises to power and conquers half the world through sheer brutality and self-belief.
Presented by a British East Asian cast in a startling new adaptation this production calls into question the very nature of power, masculinity and violence. What makes a king? What makes a father? What makes a man?
In an age when Trump can become leader of the free world, conflict rages across the Middle East, Europe is increasingly divided and a new power from the East asserts its growing dominance, Marlowe’s classic takes on a new urgency and relevance for our time.
“Ng Choon Ping’s adaptation of ‘Tamburlaine’ is stripped-back, clearly directed and ruthlessly sardonic. Lourdes Faberes is a tremendous Tamburlaine – proud and fierce, and bewildered when mortality lands a knockout blow on myth.” Time Out ★★★★
With thanks to our funders
Arts Council England, Cockayne Trust and The Foyle Foundation.
Videos
Creatives
Weds 15 March
| Cast | Melody Brown, Lourdes Faberes, Fiona Hampton, Susan Hingley, Amanda Maud, Leo Wan. |
| Director | Ng Choon Ping |
| Design | Moi Tran |
| Video Design | Gillian Tan |
| Lighting Design | Neill Brinkworth |
| Movement | Rose Ryan |
| Dramaturgy | Stewart Melton |
| Taiko Drumming | Joji Hirota |
| Creative Producer | Kumiko Mendl |
Reviews
"Ng Choon Ping’s production is played out on a bare stage with a screen offering handy clarification on who is portraying each character in a cast charged with many roles. It has a stylish simplicity"
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian***
"The rhythmic live taiko drumming adds a frisson of urgency to the work, vibrating deliciously throughout the subterranean studio space"
Corrie Tan, Exeunt
"The cast define their multiple roles clearly, with Fiona Hampton imbuing Zenocrate, Tamburlaine’s wife, with tragic dignity. They all give Marlowe’s sarcasm-dipped verse real oomph. Lourdes Faberes is a tremendous Tamburlaine – proud and fierce, and bewildered when mortality lands a knockout blow on myth."
Tom Wicker, Time Out****
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