Josh and I went to the Folger Theater last night to see Mary Stuart, Friedrich Schiller's play about Mary, Queen of Scots. Neither of us could keep our Marys straight--we kept confusing Bloody Mary with Mary Queen of Scots--so we did some highly refined historical research beforehand. (By which I mean that we watched The Tudors and that HBO miniseries with Helen Mirren as Elizabeth I.) Now I think I finally have it straight: Mary Queen of Scots was the cousin of Elizabeth I and (Bloody) Mary I. She's the lucky lady who was married for a minute to the King of France, then later arranged for her noble Scottish husband to be killed and then married his murderer. Because this all got kind of messy, she was forced to abdicate her throne to her infant son, James, who would later become King of England after Elizabeth's death. I love European history; not convoluted at all.
I've never read Schiller, but the play is quite good, and the acting in this production was wonderful. So was the set design, which was very imposing and some of the best I've ever seen at the Folger. The play centers on the final days of Mary's life, in which Elizabeth agonizes over the decision to chop off her head while Mary's Catholic supporters frantically attempt to get her out of prison and out of Protestant England. There is a convoluted love story in there somewhere too, but that part was much less interesting than the power-struggle that plays out between the two Queens.
In short, Mary refuses to concede that she has been defeated, and the play explores what happens when two uncompromising sides try to get what they want. Even though she has been stripped of her crown, expelled by her country and thrown into an English prison, she still thinks of herself as a monarch anointed by God. So when it comes time to try and convince the conflicted Elizabeth to spare her life, she fails miserably; she calls Elizabeth a bastard and basically tells her to get lost.
Everything I read about Mary Stuart insists that is an anti-Elizabethan play, and that the whole point is to expose how deeply misunderstood Mary was by her Tudor enemies. I disagree with this reading, though; by the end, I had more sympathy for Elizabeth than Mary. Yes, Mary is thrown into prison and convicted of a crime which she did not commit, but she was still a traitor who had no intention of obeying the laws of England or recognizing Elizabeth as Queen. She also arranged the murder of her husband and then married his killer! Why wouldn't you want to get rid of such a person? Elizabeth may have overstepped the rule of law, but she wasn't wrong to cross Mary off her list of enemies.
The more I think about it, the more I have to conclude that Hobbes would have really liked this play. Elizabeth is not a perfect illustration of the sovereign, but she's close. Her own conscience tells her not to order Mary's execution, but she does it anyway because she knows that while Mary is alive the commonwealth will remain divided; two Queens cannot occupy the same space. She doesn't fully own the decision, which the sovereign definitely would have, but she still gets the deed done. Maybe this is why everyone thinks Elizabeth is the villain of this story--they haven't yet read Hobbes and come around, as I have, to the idea that a Leviathan might be kind of swell, if only we could pull it off.
I've never read Schiller, but the play is quite good, and the acting in this production was wonderful. So was the set design, which was very imposing and some of the best I've ever seen at the Folger. The play centers on the final days of Mary's life, in which Elizabeth agonizes over the decision to chop off her head while Mary's Catholic supporters frantically attempt to get her out of prison and out of Protestant England. There is a convoluted love story in there somewhere too, but that part was much less interesting than the power-struggle that plays out between the two Queens.
In short, Mary refuses to concede that she has been defeated, and the play explores what happens when two uncompromising sides try to get what they want. Even though she has been stripped of her crown, expelled by her country and thrown into an English prison, she still thinks of herself as a monarch anointed by God. So when it comes time to try and convince the conflicted Elizabeth to spare her life, she fails miserably; she calls Elizabeth a bastard and basically tells her to get lost.
Everything I read about Mary Stuart insists that is an anti-Elizabethan play, and that the whole point is to expose how deeply misunderstood Mary was by her Tudor enemies. I disagree with this reading, though; by the end, I had more sympathy for Elizabeth than Mary. Yes, Mary is thrown into prison and convicted of a crime which she did not commit, but she was still a traitor who had no intention of obeying the laws of England or recognizing Elizabeth as Queen. She also arranged the murder of her husband and then married his killer! Why wouldn't you want to get rid of such a person? Elizabeth may have overstepped the rule of law, but she wasn't wrong to cross Mary off her list of enemies.
The more I think about it, the more I have to conclude that Hobbes would have really liked this play. Elizabeth is not a perfect illustration of the sovereign, but she's close. Her own conscience tells her not to order Mary's execution, but she does it anyway because she knows that while Mary is alive the commonwealth will remain divided; two Queens cannot occupy the same space. She doesn't fully own the decision, which the sovereign definitely would have, but she still gets the deed done. Maybe this is why everyone thinks Elizabeth is the villain of this story--they haven't yet read Hobbes and come around, as I have, to the idea that a Leviathan might be kind of swell, if only we could pull it off.
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