Robert Icke productions are becoming must see theatrical events as his reputation grows with each stunning and imaginative production. His previous West End productions of 1984, The Oresteia and Hamlet all enjoyed great critical acclaim for his direction and the performances within them. This success creates a growing expectation of powerful creative theatre. The production of Mary Stuart started life at the small intimate Almeida theatre and generated much interest by the gimmicky sounding coin spin which opens the show to determine which actress plays Mary and which her nemesis Elizabeth. It's transfer to the Duke of York's, twice the size of the Almeida, therefore was much anticipated and in some ways suffers from this anticipation with its relatively slow wordy first two acts and clunky frequent entrances from the floor of the auditorium. However it explodes with intensity and energy with the two Queen's imagined only meeting and then never lets up in a rollercoaster decent to the inevitable finale.
The historical story is familiar to most of us. The threat to the rule of the tolerant Protestant Queen Elizabeth from her first cousin the Catholic Queen of Scots which results in her imprisonment for 19 years while the courts of England and France plot and counter plot. The play was written by the German playwright and philosopher Frederich Schiller in 1800, over 200 years after the events it depicts and clearly sympathises with Mary. Robert Icke's masterstroke is to take this tale and present it in modern dress with TV's, syringes and a digital clock to give it a freshness that both strips the original story back to it core, the challenges faced by these two women and their positions in the society of the day and points clearly to the parallels in the politics of today with Brexit , devolution and the threats posed by opposing religious ideologies. At the same time it draws out the weight of responsibility on leaders for critical decisions, their difficulties of knowing who to trust despite their power and the emotional conflict that their position can create with their personal life. The coin spin is not only a neat theatrical devise to add spice to the evening but also a metaphor for those critical moments in history that turn on a simple choice by the leader of the day.
