FictionThatMatters.org

Mary Stuart
Written by Friedrich Schiller
Adopted by Peter Oswald
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Starring: Janet McTeer, Harriet Walter, Brian Murray, Chandler Williams
Broadhurst Theatre, New York

Imagine if Alberto Fujimori had fled Peru to Japan and then tried to become Prime Minister. What would Prime Minister Aso do with him? Serve him sencha tea?

This seems an absurd scenario today (although Fujimori did flee Peru after being accused of human rights violations), but in 16th century England anything was possible. Throw in sex and a few bloodlines, and there you go.

Frierdrich Schiller’s 1800 play Mary Stuart is set shortly after Henry VIII beheaded several of his wives and created his own Church. Queen Mary Stuart, a Catholic, has fled Scotland after being ousted from the throne by Protestants and her half-brother. She has sought asylum in England and the protection of Queen Elizabeth I. The problem is that she has also asserted a claim to the English throne. Several assassination attempts against Queen Elizabeth I have implicated her, and the once proud and passionate Mary Queen of Scots has lived for two decades under close guard in isolated castles.

Mary Stuart is a new translation from the German original and Phyllida Lloyd’s production is also new. There is a freshness about the set — not least because of the spring rain that falls upon the stage — and the dialogue comes across as nuanced and insightful. I thought, while listening to the eloquent soliloquies, that Shakespeare may have written like this if he was alive today, instead of pottering about in his Elizabethan drawl. (What kid nowadays does not use the glossary on the verso page of Macbeth?) It is little surprise that translator Peter Oswald was once a writer in residence at Shakespeare’s Globe. I also found it very enjoyable that the lords and knights don modern business suits, while the leading actresses wear stylized period dress. We are at once watching boardroom and royal court, bridging the centuries.

The relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart is the central focus of the play, and the leading actresses offer inspired performances. Janet McTeer’s Mary is proud, regal and indignant. Harriet Walter as Elizabeth offers staid cunning and the fine lacework of vulnerability. They act and look like queens. (What an honor for a butterfly to be named a ‘monarch’, after such royalty as this, or for these on-stage monarchs to so clearly exhibit the nimble qualities of the butterfly, in a man-eat-man world.)

Hmm… methinks Chuang Tzu would have said that last part better. Or not at all.

Anyway, this is not a performance review as such, so I will stop here because the entire cast of Mary Stuart was pretty remarkable. But I will note Chandler Williams’ bright-eyed Mortimer, a conflicted youth whose love for Mary mixes with religious fanaticism and sexual desire with the subtlety of a Hamlet. Then there was Brian Murray, Earl of Shrewsbury, who was, well, just so damned likeable with his resonant, avuncular voice. The production also managed to distill a somewhat somber script into a slightly comedic one, with impeccable timing. The laughs lightened the impending doom.

The Birth of International Justice

So why does Mary Stuart matter in a world of human rights? It is an extremely legalistic play. Mary seeks political asylum in England after fleeing Scotland. She is then detained for two decades. While in detention on English soil, she is accused of hatching an assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth. Several characters in the play are lawyers, notably Lord Burleigh (Nicholas Woodeson), and Mary and her accusers cite vague legal precepts. Queen Elizabeth I and the English Parliament also profess to follow the law in condemning Mary Stuart.

This story is, in short, one of the first examples of a head of state being tried by a court of law, and not purely by the sword. To use our earlier example, it would be Peruvian ex-president Alberto Fujimori being tried in a Japanese court for crimes that he would have committed on Japanese soil. So much for diplomatic immunity.

Mary Stuart offers five major objections to her conviction by the English court: (1) that as a monarch she is ‘above’ any court; (2) that the court prevented her from confronting her accusers; (3) that she was denied access to the most incriminating evidence, a series of handwritten letters; (4) that the law according to which she was punished did not exist when she committed her offense (ex post facto); and (5) that the law was written to specifically punish her (a bill of attainder). Mary demands, in other words, due process befitting of royalty. She is above the law and, if not, deserving of its highest principles of fairness.

She further cites the ‘law of nations’ to strengthen her arguments. This is an amorphous body of law that relied upon treaties and customary law to govern. (Any lawyer who hears someone invoke the ‘law of nations’ usually sneers.) No treaty at the time was strong enough to compel other nations to liberate Mary from captivity.

History is vague on whether Mary received due process. The paltry record indicates that she could not confront her witnesses, nor could she read the incriminating letters that proved she attempted to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. Her ‘ex post facto’ and ‘bill of attainder’ defenses were correct, but likely inapplicable at the time, when no law prohibited them. In the play, Mary is depicted as innocent of the assassination attempts. Onstage this works, and Queen Elizabeth emerges as a clever monarch who outfoxes them all. Elizabeth relies upon neither the courts nor politics, instead having Mary dispatched in a vague middle ground between the two realms, eventually assigning blame to a lowly servant.

What is clear is that Mary Stuart’s ‘trial’ was one of the first nods to international justice. That heads of state may no longer be immune from persecution. It would take another 400 years for this notion of accountability to come into fruition. The seeds may have been planted with Mary Stuart.

This is admittedly my legalistic take on Mary Stuart. You could also say that the play is about religion, politics, passion, power, vulnerability, and gender politics. The production touches upon all of these themes.

If I have a gripe…

If I have a gripe, it is with the playwright and not the production. The dialogue is plot heavy. I can’t say that I blame Friedrich Schiller for this. It is unlikely that everyone in Germany of 1800 — or anywhere, for that matter — would have known the labyrinthine history of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I. Reading contemporary accounts of Elizabethan history is like perusing the Book of Numbers in the Bible — only all the offspring are mating and plotting against each other. The playwright probably felt that he had to begin somewhere, and the dialogue is watered down with his historical clarifications.

There were also moments when I felt that Mary was a little melo-dramatic. A few quotidien lines might have made her more accessible to me. Perhaps she could have chatted with her nursemaid (Maria Tucci) about her favorite pet hawk, or delighted in a nice spoonful of liverworst pudding. It may have grounded her lofty pronouncements.

Tickets to Mary Stuart are not cheap, but that is a problem with Broadway, not the play. It started in the small Donmar Warehouse theatre in London before moving to the West End, and then sailed across the pond to Times Square. The play is on Broadway because it’s good. And if you’re going to shell out the cash in these trying times and need a respite from boppin’ and groovin’ to Hair, then check it out.

–Deji Olukotun