Modern-Day Marston

Our production allowed us to use performance to explore critical and historical research on the play and better understand early modern drama and culture. It also allowed us to explore the play’s continued resonances with our own culture, which explain why it is worth studying today. As director Noam Lior reminds us, ‘In Marston’s London, as in Toronto now, city living promises freedom to pursue love, sex, marriage, and wealth. [But] In Marston’s London, as in Toronto now, if you have the wrong accent, the wrong religion, the wrong profession, the dream of the city can quickly become a nightmare’.

Lior’s decision to stage the play in modern dress, and with diverse casting and voices, was based on the desire to explore these resonances and invite us to think about issues like sex and sex work, marriage, immigration, and community in the modern city, through the lens of the play. Director Lior and dramaturge Erin Julian presented some of the conversations and explorations around these issues at the ‘Sex, Religion, and Xenophobia’ conference on March 23, and this work will be available as part of an Issues in Review in Early Theatre that will publish the conference proceedings.