Mary Stuart

Director Inese Mičule, while retaining Rainis’s translation, sets the conflicts in Schiller’s play Mary Stuart in the context of today’s time and society. “For me, this will be a play about power, gender, political responsibility, public image, and how arbitrary our place in the hierarchy of power really is.” The director intends to transform the conflict between Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I into a psychological and political duel between two women, rather than merely a historical drama. One of the production’s central questions is whether it is possible to say which of the two queens is free. Will the two women be able to see each other as human beings, rather than merely as political functions? In Friedrich Schiller’s tragedy Mary Stuart (1801), the historical basis of the conflict is the consolidation of the power of Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) in the second half of the 16th century, as she gathered supporters around her and moved against political rivals. The tragedy begins when the trial has already taken place and Mary Stuart (1542–1587) has been sentenced to death. In the play, Schiller brings the two rivals—and relatives—together. Historically, this never happened. Mary Stuart hoped that Elizabeth I would nevertheless release her, but in 1587 she was executed by beheading.