Reviews 2013
Reviews 2013
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by Friedrich Schiller, translated by Peter Oswald, directed by Antoni Cimolino
Stratford Festival, Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford
May 27-October 19, 2013
“Rival Queens and Powerful Drama”
Of the first seven shows to open at the Stratford Festival this year, Mary Stuart is by far the most successful. The play from 1800 by German playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) is an amazingly insightful study of the nature of political power and of the intertwining of public and private motivations in political decision making. The play is fascinating enough for in its portrayal of the famed rival queens in the Elizabethan age. But Schiller’s examination of a political problem in which there can be no good outcome gives the play a surprising ring of modernity.
The action takes place during the three days before Mary Stuart’s execution in 1587. Nineteen years earlier Mary had been driven from Scotland, where she was queen, because of accusations that she had had her husband, Lord Darnley, killed and had married his murderer, the Earl of Bothwell. She had fled to England hoping for protection from her cousin Elizabeth I, only to be imprisoned by Elizabeth because Mary had a claim to the English throne that Roman Catholics in England and the rest of Europe saw as stronger than Elizabeth’s claim. Elizabeth’s dilemma is that she cannot keep her cousin imprisoned indefinitely because the people will view her as cruel. Nor can she order Mary’s execution because, first, whatever crimes Mary committed occurred in Scotland, where Elizabeth had no authority, not in England; second, if the monarch of England ordered the execution of the monarch of Scotland, it could provoke the wrath of both Scotland its ally France, where Mary had also been queen, and the uprising of Catholics, who already considered Mary as England’s legal monarch. In 1570 Pope Pius V had excommunicated Elizabeth for putting down a Catholic uprising in the North.
Schiller alternates scenes of Mary at Fotheringhay Castle with scenes of Elizabeth at Westminster Palace consulting with her privy council. Both monarchs encounter men with dubious offers of support. At Fotheringhay, Mary (Lucy Peacock) discovers that Mortimer (Ian Lake), the son of her warder Amias Paulet (James Blendick), has secretly converted to Catholicism and has hatched a plot (a reference to the Babington Plot) to free Mary from prison. Mortimer has also insinuated himself into Elizabeth’s court to become her most trusted secret agent. To him Elizabeth (Seana McKenna) confides her secret wish to have Mary killed. Meanwhile, the Earl of Leicester (Geraint Wyn Davies), whom Elizabeth loves but will not marry, feigns complete support for Elizabeth when, in fact, he is secretly aiding Mary, whom he loves.
The most famous scene in the play where Mary and Elizabeth meet face to face never happened in history, but Schiller felt that the demands of drama overrode those of historical accuracy. Mary had repeatedly stated that she had to be judged by her peers and that the only person she could appeal to, therefore, was Elizabeth. Elizabeth had refused all requests to meet, but Schiller makes the English queen curious to discover what it is about Mary that causes all men who meet her to take her side. Therefore, Schiller has Elizabeth engineer a “chance” meeting outside Fotheringhay, where Mary can present her cause directly to Elizabeth and Elizabeth can take the measure of her rival. It is a brilliant scene where Mary attempts to humble herself and Elizabeth attempts to control her rage but neither succeeds and we feel all hope Mary may have had for mercy has been lost.
Antoni Cimolino has the great advantage of directing an unusually fine cast. McKenna and Peacock are the ideal candidates for their roles. As Elizabeth, McKenna exudes severity and disdain, but in her scenes with Leicester reveals the more playful private side of the monarch, thus giving us the insight that game-playing of one kind or another is an inherent part of her nature. As Mary, Peacock traverses a wide range of complex emotions – pride vying with humility, anger with calm, hope with despair. Peacock’s unwavering focus when Mary prepares herself for death makes the scene memorable and moving. The central irony the two convey so well is that Mary, condemned to death, has a zest for life, while Elizabeth, her jailer, has little.
Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth’s chief advisor and the most adamant in insisting on Mary’s death, is played by Ben Carlson, who is as well-spoken and forceful as usual but is also too young for the part. To make up for this, Cimolino has him in a grey wig and beard, but that’s a highschoolish solution. Either Cimolino should have Carlson play Burleigh as a young up-and-coming politician, or he should find an actor closer in age to the others cast as Elizabeth’s counsellors. Brian Dennehy is cast in the small but important role as the Earl of Shrewsbury, the one voice of humanity and reason among Elizabeth’s counsellors. Dennehy may be the right age for the part, but his speech is unclear to the point of his dropping the final syllables of words. He may be famous but it’s clear that even this small role is now beyond him. Surely there are Canadian actors of the right age to play these roles. The casting for both Carlson and Dennehy shows the significant gap Stratford now has in actors in the sixty-plus age-range.
The minor roles are all well taken. As Hanna Kennedy, Mary’s faithful servant while in prison, Patricia Collins’s passion immediately wins us to Mary’s side. So too does the compassion with which James Blendick imbues Mary’s unwilling jailer Amias Paulet. Dylan Trowbridge is the unfortunate undersecretary Sir William Davison, who Elizabeth enjoins to carry out her will with Mary’s death warrant without telling him what her will is. Trowbridge makes us feel the agony of a young man who knows that Elizabeth’s indirection could well entail his own death. As Melvil, Mary’s former steward who has come to take Mary’s final confession before death, Brian Tree displays a combination of humility and strength that helps fill Mary’s last scene with so much emotion.
Schiller’s insight into the nature of politics is so penetrating that there is no need to update the action. Cimolino has given designer Eo Sharp leave to try, but Sharp has not found an elegant solution. He has clad everyone in period costume except for two body guards for Mary at the beginning in modern dress and who appear again with Elizabeth at the conclusion. Though most of the furniture is Renaissance, Sharp makes Elizabeth’s council table of glass and metal with the pattern of a labyrinth etched on it, the same pattern that lighting designer Steven Hawkins periodically projects onto the stage. Yes, politics is labyrintine, but such underscoring is unnecessary. So too is the razorwire that surrounds the acting space to suggest that Elizabeth is as much imprisoned in her own way as Mary. The crass modernity of the design suggests a ranch as much as a prison and conflicts too much with the period costumes which we constantly fear will catch on the wire. The Donmar Warehouse production in 2006 directed by Phyllida Lloyd was much simpler and more trenchant. The cast wore modern dress except for the two queens clad in period costume. This emphasized the gender politics of the play in a way Cimolino’s does not and showed that female leaders with as much power as Elizabeth and Mary would be exceptional even in our own time.
These flaws are small, however, in relation to the high level of the acting (Dennehy excepted) and the gradually increasing tension that Cimolino generates. Schiller’s Mary Stuart is one of the masterpieces of European drama. When Stratford lasted staged it in 1982 with Pat Galloway as Elizabeth and Margot Dionne as Mary, it was also a great success. If you don’t want to wait another 30 years to see it, you had better book your tickets now.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: (top) Lucy Peacock, Geraint Wyn Davies and Seana McKenna; (middle) Ian Lake. ©2013 David Hou.
2013-06-14
Mary Stuart