Tamburlaine, Parts I and II at Polonsky Shakespeare Center

The New York Times - Recommended

"...It feels only fitting that Michael Boyd's improbably enjoyable "Tamburlaine, Parts I and II," which opened on Sunday night at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, should make no excuses for its redemption-proof hero or for the long and bloody plays over which he rules."

NY Daily News - Recommended

"...Edited by Michael Boyd, who directs with bold, stylish flourishes, and led by a charismatic John Douglas Thompson in the title role, the 31/2-hour presentation (it takes a half hour to swab up the stage between parts) makes for a memorable, visceral and, eventually, repetitive and fatiguing experience."

Entertainment Weekly - Recommended

"...In a performance that will deservedly cement his bona fides as one of the best classical actors in the English language, Thompson avoids the easy histrionics of the title role, underscoring the character's wrath with a weary sense of rot and regret. In the play's best scene, he gnashes with mourning over the body of his wife (Merritt Janson) and commands his men to ''wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain'' and ''raise higher than the clouds, and with the cannon break the frame of heaven.'' Marlowe's name is eternally mentioned in the same breath as Shakespeare's, with the latter cited as the superior artist of their day. (Which, of course, he was.) But in this one moving scene, Thompson inhabits the less famed playwright's words with a magical thunder reminiscent of the Bard's great flawed men."

TheaterMania - Recommended

"...The nonstop thrills of this new production make its three-and-a-half-hour run time fly by. Boyd and company have proven Marlowe's text to be fascinatingly modern and infinitely watchable, over four centuries after its premiere. While Marlowe's hubristic monster doesn't fully do justice to the historical Tamerlane, neither does Karimov's wise and fair conqueror. The fact that Tamerlane still inspires such varying reactions and revisionist history is proof of his lasting effect on the human imagination."