Christopher Marlowe, sixteenth-century author, was murdered at the age of 29. This tragicomedy speculates that his death was tied to his scandalous play about the relationship between Jesus and the disciple John. "Playwright Tom Jacobson is a linguistic gadfly. Often, you are tickled by him. Occasionally you are bedeviled by him. Once or twice, you just want to swat him. Linguistic pyrotechnics explode in Jacobson's period verse drama THE BELOVED DISCIPLE. Little is known of Marlowe's life. It is certain that he was an atheistic iconoclast whose heretical views placed him in constant danger of arrest. The motive for his murder in 1593 remains murky. In this clever attempt to solve the mystery, Jacobson's precocious use of language is rivaled only by the sheer effrontery of his subject matter." -F Kathleen Foley, Los Angeles Times