Mary Stuart

October - November 2006

Two women dressed in Elizabethan clothing stand facing each other. Behind them, two men look on.

Overview

One of European theatre’s major plays, Schiller’s masterpiece hinges on a brilliantly imagined meeting between Mary Queen of Scots, focus of simmering Catholic dissent, and her cousin, Elizabeth, Queen of England, who has imprisoned her.

Isolated by their duplicitous male courtiers, the women collide headlong, each wrestling with the rank, ambition and destiny their births have bestowed, against a thrilling background of intrigue, plot and counter-plot.

Mary Stuart has probably done more than any other work to shape perceptions across continental Europe of Scotland and its history.

A co-production with the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh and Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow