whose history?
The situation of Mary Stuart is that Elizabeth I, the Protestant daughter of Henry VIII (see this post for reference), is Queen of England and Mary, formerly Queen of the Scots, a devout Catholic, is in prison in London for murdering her husband and plotting against the English throne. Egged on by various plotters and courtly connivers, the two engage in contest of wills: Mary seeks to be freed, while Elizabeth hesitates to execute her for ethical reasons and to avoid turning her into a martyr for the Catholic cause. Mary is finally executed, Elizabeth claiming it was done without her specific bidding.
How then does Friedrich Schiller turn this into a play in which the beheaded Mary is seen as victorious and Elizabeth, who in fact goes on to reign as a great Queen, as vanquished? Good writing, professional production and excellent acting mask the fundamental nonsense.
Mary has quite a resume. She has murdered her husband, married his murderer, been thrown out by the Scots as their Queen and engaged in several murderous plots. Yet Schiller, and Oswald, envision her as spiritually superior to ElizabethI, a beloved Queen who strengthened the arts, crafts and commerce of her nation, prepared it militarily to ward off threats from powerful enemies, and fostered the great flowering of Elizabethan England.
This play has been called “revisionist” but it’s just biased.
The two go hair to hair. At the end Mary, who is purged of all her sins in a lengthy confession while bathed in a heavenly light, goes toward the execution block calmly, gorgeously dressed and magnificently coiffed with a gold hair net. Elizabeth, on the contrary, comes onstage irascible, then isolated and forlorn, and without her elaborately braided costume wig — her short underneath hair looks as if it had been chopped with a hedge shears. How interesting, a purposeful twisting of fact by the playwrights to shaft Elizabeth, since Mary’s lost wig was the one that really figured in this execution. According to the accounts, when the executioner held up Mary’s severed head, her glamorous auburn wig fell off, revealing her gray hair. That’s not my idea of how to come out a-head. 🙂
Mary Stuart was first produced in Germany in 1800. Schiller, in this revolutionary period, fired by romantic aspirations, was inspired to write an anti-monarchical account of Elizabeth … but Mary Queen of Scots is no standard bearer for liberation.
Mary Stuart plays at the Broadhurst Theatre in NYC through August 16th.
Your absolutely right — and this play makes Mary a Saint … but why? why? And I think the reason is that Schiller, though a “liberal,” was caught up in the Romantic movement’s anti-authority sentiment. What do you think?
She has murdered her husband, married his murderer, been thrown out by the Scots as their Queen and engaged in several murderous plots.Mary is a real villain not Elizabeth.
I found the play quite long and tedious, and although it was superbly performed by the two female leads, the men lacked precision in their enunciation, spoke quite rapidly, and made the twists and connivings hard to understand and follow. The current male garb was quite ingenious, drawing a parallel to politiicans in all ages.
Nan
A wonderfully acted play – as good as it was in London a few years ago – but still quite troubling in that it is very sophisticated propaganda. Mary is a real villain not Elizabeth. Also Mary’s confessional is hypocritical – one can not clear one’s conscience with a few words, a cracker and a sip of wine! I did not realize the significance of the hair and the wigs – thanks for bringing that out – really good direction – pity it is wasted on such a twisted story.