Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart as currently staged at the
Teatre Lliure in Barcelona
presents a minimalist confinement of the Scottish queen’s forced confrontation
with her English counterpart. Acting opens behind iron prison bars on an
otherwise bare stage with few other props than a writing desk. As events
continue a few added suggestions are considered necessary and added sparingly—a
handful of chairs replace the bars, invoking Elizabeth’s court, a large lantern
is set swinging, crucially invoking the passage of time and the English queen’s
famous indecisiveness about signing Mary’s death warrant. Or is the slowness of
enlightenment being noted as well, a different view of history somehow held
back by Machiavellian circles? In any case director Sergi Belbel places the audience
on two sides of this simple jail, “casting” them as it were in one sense
outside, in another, inside its bars.
The Catalan translation, not surprisingly,
is briskly spoken. Also, in keeping with the play’s economy, the more than 17
actors called for in Schiller’s original are reduced to seven. The narrative of
events leading up to the play’s immediate events then has to be set out as
context by the actors that survive the cuts. This also reflects on one of the
play’s historical concepts, “the people,” expressed (for example) in Elizabeth’s concern for
public opinion. However from the outset we know one basic thing about the
ending: Mary will be beheaded. That stark image offers some understanding of
Schiller’s decision to fictionalize (among other things) the face to face
meeting between the two monarchs. For while that meeting never took place, the
two did exchange letters, offering some insight into their different
psychological make up. Mock-up reinventions like Mary Stuart expand our understanding and expectations of the
history involved. Perhaps the psychological feature is Schiller’s greatest gift
to the play’s twenty-first century actors in business suits whose roles as
advisors to the queen are so well performed. Bravo Lliure!
Information about the production is at http://www.teatrelliure.com/en/agenda/temporada-2015-2016/maria-estuard
