Mary Stuart
I saw Mary Stuart last night. Very interesting, although naturally I was pointing out historical errors/deviations to Michael at intermission. The main one, I guess, is the way Mary is presented, her dramatic character versus her historical character. She's very forthright, very strong and in your face and direct. But the real Mary, from all I've read, was much more...charming. Mary had an incredible ability to get people on her side, especially men--it's difficult to tell from her portraits but she was supposed to be quite beautiful and vivacious. In the movie Elizabeth, the Golden Age, Samantha Morton nails Mary--there's so much nuance and subtext in her interactions with the others, especially her jailer. She has one scene where she says to him "I pray for my cousin every day. Do you think she prays for me?" The way Morton looks at him sideways, with a very slight smile--she nailed the woman, a terrific performance. Since I love to speculate about the wider context, I wonder if that was a learned behavior or something innate. Mary grew up in the French court, with every advantage, as a favorite, and was then thrown to the wolves when she went back to Scotland as a young woman, surrounded by a lot of unruly male Scottish nobles who acted like complete thugs to her. It's easy to see how she might try to turn her disadvantage--her sex--into an advantage, by trying to charm those around her. However she WAS a Tudor by ancestry, and there was a strain of charm in many of them (from Edward IV, who was extremely personable both to men and women). Henry VIII and his younger sister Mary also had famously magnetic personalities. However this character trait skipped over Mary's Tudor grandmother, Margaret, completely--by all accounts, she did not have the gifts her younger siblings did!
At any rate, this play presents a different Mary than I've seen, and I think I can see why. It's trying to set up Mary as Elizabeth's antithesis--also strong, also a Queen, but since she's so constrained, is free to pursue one goal no matter the cost. I personally think the actual Mary is more dramatically interesting but I can see why they did it this way. The two actresses are terrific and really embrace the juicy theatricality of the script--Mary is especially riveting in her last couple of scenes. My favorite Elizabeth scene is when she gives the signed order for Mary's execution to Davison with no clear instructions on how to execute the document. The other actors are all pretty good too, although the young actor who plays Mortimer (a made up role, a fanatical Roman Catholic who's trying to free Mary) is Spitty McWetMouth. I felt bad for anyone who shared a scene with him, he really needs to swallow before he starts speaking.
VERY spare production values but there's an awesome special effect at the top of the second act that I won't spoil. Lovely though. I'm not too crazy about the design of "men in modern clothes, women in period clothes"--I think it's distracting--but it's an interesting idea.
I was talking to Michael about the Mary/Elizabeth historical dilemma, in that there IS no "right" side. Both characters really had to do what they did, and the fallout changed everything afterward. Whether or not Mary actually did plot against Elizabeth (the Babington Plot, etc.--I personally think she did), she certainly encouraged it, because deep down she felt she DID have a right to the throne (notwithstanding Henry VIII's Act of Succession which left his throne, after his son Edward, to his two daughters--both of whom he'd declared bastard. It's confusing). She had a inbred sense of herself as THE Queen, she was anointed and practically born Queen of Scotland, and was also Queen of France (for a time) by marriage, and she did not have an equal in the situation other than perhaps Elizabeth, and was therefore basically above English law. It's hard for us to see this argument, products of democracy as we are, but it wasn't just legal maneuvering, she really believed that--she believed her destiny was to reign, and if that didn't happen, then she would embrace martyrdom. And obviously Elizabeth HAD to do what she did--she had to eliminate this very real threat to her throne who refused to give up. And yet the step she was taking was HUGE--it wasn't just the loss of a life (her father had enemies executed all the time), she was killing a relative and most importantly, an anointed Queen. The construct of the Divine Right of Kings was being undermined--you could argue there's a direct line from Mary's execution, to the overthrow and execution of Charles I (Mary's grandson) some sixty years later.
At any rate, this play presents a different Mary than I've seen, and I think I can see why. It's trying to set up Mary as Elizabeth's antithesis--also strong, also a Queen, but since she's so constrained, is free to pursue one goal no matter the cost. I personally think the actual Mary is more dramatically interesting but I can see why they did it this way. The two actresses are terrific and really embrace the juicy theatricality of the script--Mary is especially riveting in her last couple of scenes. My favorite Elizabeth scene is when she gives the signed order for Mary's execution to Davison with no clear instructions on how to execute the document. The other actors are all pretty good too, although the young actor who plays Mortimer (a made up role, a fanatical Roman Catholic who's trying to free Mary) is Spitty McWetMouth. I felt bad for anyone who shared a scene with him, he really needs to swallow before he starts speaking.
VERY spare production values but there's an awesome special effect at the top of the second act that I won't spoil. Lovely though. I'm not too crazy about the design of "men in modern clothes, women in period clothes"--I think it's distracting--but it's an interesting idea.
I was talking to Michael about the Mary/Elizabeth historical dilemma, in that there IS no "right" side. Both characters really had to do what they did, and the fallout changed everything afterward. Whether or not Mary actually did plot against Elizabeth (the Babington Plot, etc.--I personally think she did), she certainly encouraged it, because deep down she felt she DID have a right to the throne (notwithstanding Henry VIII's Act of Succession which left his throne, after his son Edward, to his two daughters--both of whom he'd declared bastard. It's confusing). She had a inbred sense of herself as THE Queen, she was anointed and practically born Queen of Scotland, and was also Queen of France (for a time) by marriage, and she did not have an equal in the situation other than perhaps Elizabeth, and was therefore basically above English law. It's hard for us to see this argument, products of democracy as we are, but it wasn't just legal maneuvering, she really believed that--she believed her destiny was to reign, and if that didn't happen, then she would embrace martyrdom. And obviously Elizabeth HAD to do what she did--she had to eliminate this very real threat to her throne who refused to give up. And yet the step she was taking was HUGE--it wasn't just the loss of a life (her father had enemies executed all the time), she was killing a relative and most importantly, an anointed Queen. The construct of the Divine Right of Kings was being undermined--you could argue there's a direct line from Mary's execution, to the overthrow and execution of Charles I (Mary's grandson) some sixty years later.