Edward II
National Theatre production at the Old Vic Theatre, 1968
Role: Kent [Edmund, Earl of Kent, brother to King Edward II]

The National Theatre Company presented Bertolt Brecht's 1923 adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Elizabethan-era play. Brecht had started out translating Edward II into German, but the translation became a work unto its own.

The play is a character study of King Edward II, whose passionate love for a man named Piers Gaveston turns a number of key political leaders against him and leads to civil war. In Marlowe's original play, the focus was on Edward's passivity, and the gay theme was minor. Brecht's adaptation was about Edward's resistance, and the gay theme is major.

In the National Theatre production, Jeremy played the king's brother, Edmund, Earl of Kent. Kent initially renounced his brother's cause but winds up trying to help him. Inevitably, both brothers meet their deaths, and Edward III ascends to the throne.

Program // Wikipedia page about Marlowe's play