Mary Stuart

MARY STUART

Almeida Theatre, Islington

The history play Mary Stuart is fast paced, captivating, and most of all, enjoyable. The foreign English monarchy can appear confusing with all of its Marys, Charles, James, and Henrys. And monarchy itself is unfamiliar for American audiences. However, on Wednesday night, the monarchy came alive. The performance began with a coin spin to assign roles to the lead actors. Heads you're Elizabeth, tails you're Mary. This introduces the idea of the monarch-cousins as indivisible opposites. Mary is Catholic and in prison, while Elizabeth is Protestant and on the throne. Lia Williams played Mary Stuart the night we attended. She appealed emotionally to the audience; we found ourselves cheering for her and becoming a part of her plea to Elizabeth for her life. The audience became invested in her survival and had hope in her determination to make things right between her and her cousin, played by Juliet Stevenson. 

performance in the round

Both actors captured the emotion and tension of the time. The modernly dressed supporting actors made the play come alive and were equally engaging. The play made Mary more sympathetic and more level-headed. Even though she was imprisoned and tormented, at the end she peacefully accepted her death and said goodbye to those she loved most. Elizabeth was left isolated at the center of the stage, the loneliness that she had caused psychologically imprisoning her. One could not help but feel sympathy. One Villanova student writes, “All in all this may have been the best performance I’ve ever seen and left me wanting more, as well as with many questions I’m eager to look into.”

For more information please see:

A brief history of Mary Stuart's life:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/mary_queen_of_scots/

The relationship of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I:

http://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/elizabeth-i-and-mary-queen-scots

Account of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots:

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/maryqueenofscots.htm

Shaw Theatre's Antigone

The University College London’s production of Sophocles’ 5^th century BC classic Antigone was a generally disappointing and unengaging experience. As we trekked to the theatre, initially ending up at the Bloomsbury Theatre just to realize that the show was actually at the Shaw Theatre, we came to know that it was a college production. Having not done much research about the play, its director, or its mission prior to seeing it, we all approached the play with fresh eyes and minimal expectations. We had, of course, already read Antigone in the fall, and we hoped to see a plot and outcome with which we were familiar. We expected Antigone to bury her brother contrary to Creon’s decree and eventually die because of her defiance. Conflict would fill in the middle portion of the play. The staging and interpretation could differ, but we knew that the beginning and the ending were pretty set in stone. The first scene featuring Ismene and Antigone sitting beneath an olive tree dressed in traditional ancient clothing suggested that we were going to see a classic production of Sophocles’ work. As the play progressed, however, we saw a fragmented interpretation which was ultimately disappointing.

   Shaw Theatre

Writing about the play's “silly” chorus, Felicity identifies a central problem with UCL’s Antigone: its nonlinearity. Dressed in ripped black clothing with raggedy hair and white and black face paint, the chorus tried too hard to convey eeriness - an attempt to foreshadow? - but the performance felt melodramatic and disconnected from an otherwise modern, straightforward production. Imagine Halloween classic Hocus Pocus mixed with TV hit Mad Men: unappealing. The audience was left to wonder what this frenzied group of zebra-people chanting from the gallery was doing in the middle of the play. This mismatched setting, dress, and dialogue was our main issue with the play. Creon and his men wore slick suits with greased back hair. Creon himself sauntered around the stage emitting some charm reminiscent of a 1950s ad-man. Compared to Antigone and Ismene dressed in more traditional ancient clothing sitting beneath an olive tree on a wooden bench, the zooish chorus and elitist royalty just made no sense.

In short, nothing matched. Furniture seeming to come from locations ranging from Parliament to a traditional ancient Greek home to an American office building comprised the set, and the wardrobe artists appeared to adopt an “anything in your closet” attitude. The acting showed an earnest effort, and the general plot points of the original play carried on as usual, but the wardrobe and set discrepancies were utterly distracting. As Rowan mentioned in her journal, even the script took massive creative liberties which ultimately detracted from the experience of watching a familiar classic. The changes made to Sophocles’ original work by the UCL production team left us dissatisfied and with little to take away in terms of a thought-provoking production. We would’ve liked to see a production either portraying a classic interpretation of the play or presenting a newly meaningful interpretation to the classic work.

INTERESTED TO FIND OUT MORE?

http://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_sophocles_antigone.html

·      This link provides a comprehensive anaylsis and summary of Antigone’s original text.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wmna/hd_wmna.htm

·      This link provides a detailed description of everyday life for a Classical Greek woman.

https://wilmatheater.org/blog/adaptation-antigone-throughout-history

·      This link provides different adaptations of Antigone throughout history, a particularly useful tool when looking at the different adaptation produced by Shaw Theatre.