ATC: Which Queen Will Rule the Stage?

Wednesday, 13 April, 2011

Which Queen will rule the stage?

For a Queen to stand, a Queen must fall. Robyn Malcolm and Elizabeth Hawthorne star in MARY STUART, Friedrich Schiller's thrilling account of the extraordinary relationship between England's Elizabeth I and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth's rival to the throne, playing at the Maidment Theatre from May 5.

"Terrifically exciting. Mary Stuart has never seemed more pertinent than it does in this vivid incarnation." New York Times.

Robyn Malcolm and Elizabeth Hawthorne have long been regarded as New Zealand Theatre royalty. So who better to embody one of the most storied rivalries in English royal history than these two theatre doyennes?

Making her 84th professional performance in Auckland, Elizabeth Hawthorne has achieved particular renown for her unforgettable performances in Auckland Theatre Company productions of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, MASTER CLASS, VITA AND VIRGINIA, THE GRADUATE, DOUBT and FEMALE OF THE SPECIES.

Multiple award winning actress Robyn Malcolm is no stranger to playing incarcerated characters, with two of her recent roles involving her imprisoned in one way or another; as Cheryl in Outrageous Fortune and as Winnie in Beckett's HAPPY DAYS.

"Exhilarating! Pure class!" The Daily Telegraph

Historians and theologians have argued for centuries about which Queen had the greater claim to the English throne. After seeing Auckland Theatre Company's thrilling new production of Friedrich Schiller's MARY STUART, no one will doubt that both queens were born to rule.

Playwright Friedrich Schiller was transfixed by the willfulness and devious artistry of the two Queens. Coupled with the Machiavellian plots and counter plots of their male courtiers and

filled with romance, mystery, political and sexual intrigue, behind the scenes scheming and betrayal, his play has the feel of a modern-day political thriller.

Although they never met in real life, Schiller imagines a meeting between the two monarchs on the grounds at Fotheringay Castle, which leads to one of the most electrifying dramatic confrontations in theatre.

Peter Oswald's new translation sees their controversial lives remain brilliantly vivid and startlingly modern today. MARY STUART is not some obscure history lesson but a fast-moving narrative about the imprisoning effect of power.

The swift-paced play is brilliant at communicating both the grim comedy of the shameless politicking and faction-ridden intrigue at court and the sense that this drama boasts not one but two tragic heroines, whose antithetical journeys are mapped out here with a piercing clarity.

"MARY STUART is a sharp, darkly funny and mournful portrait of rulers in action and the ultimate loneliness of amoral self-advancement." The Guardian

The Queens lived in dangerous times, and they were undeniably dangerous women. Knowing at all times that a single wrong step would see one will lose her head, each woman was exceptionally well equipped to command an audience's attention; she who would be queen would out of necessity need to be a great actress. Both grew up on public stages, where their every gesture was analyzed, both were dependent on the approval of restless and fickle audiences.

Schiller imagines Elizabeth sorely tried by the pressures of rule, but ultimately the greatest pretender of them all: acting compassionate in public, pursuing realpolitik in private, and then royally passing the buck. A woman increasingly trapped by her indecision about Mary's fate; and the final sight of her, ashen and alone, is of a woman confronting the sacrifice of her conscience to political necessity.

Mary is dignified yet also riven with rage and suppressed panic. Schiller sees her graduate from a tense, haunted guilt about her role in the murder of Darnley to a radiant, assured queen full of spiritual honesty.

Mary Stuart is as much a play about the Queens as it is about the-men-behind-the-women-in-power. That's the ultimate rub Schiller picks up on: Elizabeth and Mary are "female kings," in a land where men are used to being governed only by men.

Schiller shows the art of spin doctoring is an old and unworthy one. Both Queens are prisoners, at the mercy of unreliable men - Mary literally so in Fotheringay castle; Elizabeth captive to her scheming advisers and to the popular will, in the no-win situation created by her Catholic opponent's presence.

The cool, cruel Lord Burleigh (Stuart Devenie), is an upper-class hatchet man par excellence. He believes Mary inspires dangerous fanaticism as a martyr figure. He accuses her of being in direct contact with cells of papist assassins and, perhaps wrongly, of masterminding their attempts to destroy Protestant rule. He doesn't yet know about the undercover Catholic, Mortimer (Jono Kenyon), who considers it would be glorious to die for the cause and who is in league with the covertly scheming Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (John Phelong). Mary's old flame, Dudley, is a dapper politician through and through, combining tenderness and callous sharp moves, but also living on a knife-edge as double agent.

Tickets for MARY STUART can be purchased from the Maidment Theatre, 09 308 2383 or www.atc.co.nz.

ENDS

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