Mary Stuart

Play Opened 19 October 2005, Closed 14 January 2006

Apollo Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue, London

Direct from a sell-out season at The Donmar Warehouse, Phyllida Lloyd's production of Mary Stuart - a thrilling play that tells the story of Mary Queen of Scots and her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

"Phyllida Lloyd's exhilarating revival... pure class" The Daily Telegraph

Mary has been held prisoner for nineteen years. Will her cousin be seen to sentence her to death? In the crisp air of the park around Fotheringhay Castle, the two women meet...

Written by Friedrich Schiller, often described as 'The German Shakespeare', Mary Stuart is an energetic fusion of passionate main plots and counter-plots. This version has been translated by Peter Oswald.

"Terrific Acting - Terrific Theatre - Terrific Schiller" The Times

Cast: Janet McTeer as 'Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots' and Harriet Walter as 'Queen Elizabeth I' with David Burke, Tam Dean Burn, James Fleet, Stephen Fletcher, Guy Henry, David Horovitch, Barbara Jefford, Rory Kinnear and Rufus Wright. This production of Mary Stuart was originally seen at London's Donmar Warehouse from 14 August 2005 to 3 September 2005.

"As a rule I would only volunteer to sit up straight and in the same position for 2 long hours and 45 minutes (admitedly with an interval) if I thought I was going to be disembarking at the end of it in a hot country with nice beaches. As it turned out Peter Oswald's sharp and clear translation of Schiller's Mary Stuart at The Donmar Warehouse was even more rewarding than that." The Sunday Telegraph

"Unforgettable" The Daily Mail

"Phyllida Lloyd has provided a gleaming, intense Mary Stuart. And it is never more intense than in the crucial power-shifting scene in which the captive Mary Queen of Scots meets Queen Elizabeth at Fotheringhay Castle, an episode invented by Schiller, and designed to reveal his (not thoroughly evolved) notions about women. It's thrillingly staged here in Anthony Ward's perfect, bare, grey space, backed by an ungiving black wall - and it is acted to the hilt." The Observer

"Only a few months ago, Friedrich Schiller's palace drama Don Carlos riveted West End audiences... now Schiller's double portrait of Elizabeth I and her great rival, Mary Queen of Scots, proves equally gripping, and it's a more mature, tightly structured play. Performed in a new English version by Peter Oswald, this work also seems startlingly modern, if not completely up-to-the-minute... Janet McTeer's Mary is awesomely tall and dignified yet also riven with rage and suppressed panic. Harriet Walter's Elizabeth is sorely tried by the pressures of rule, but in the end she's the greatest pretender of them all, publicly acting compassionate, pursuing realpolitik in private, and then royally passing the buck. This a sharp, darkly funny and mournful portrait of rulers in action and the ultimate loneliness of amoral self-advancement. Recommended." The Independent on Sunday

"The director Phyllida Lloyd never strong-arms Mary Stuart into being 'relevant'. Instead, this play — written in 1800, performed here in a fluid, elegant new version by Peter Oswald — is allowed space to let the echoes chime through. No clunking references to 'coalitions', no ironic American accents, just the mechanics of power laid bare to dramatic effect... Watching the two queens glide across Anthony Ward's spare, atmospheric set is like watching two vast ships on a terrible collision course. Both female leads crackle with the kind of gun-powder charisma that sparks devotion and foments intrigue, their long skirts swishing across the stage with decisive intent... In this fine production, every lie, every deception, rings true." The Sunday Times