Description
Book SynopsisSchiller's play of 1800 pits Mary Queen of Scots against her rival Elizabeth of England. The meeting never happened, but Goethe claimed 'It will be good to see those whores alongside each other.'
Schiller's Mary redeems her youthful crimes through an ordeal that lifts her into the realms of spiritual serenity, while Elizabeth descends deeper into rage, revenge and deception.
Peter Oswald's version, mixing poetry and prose, opened at the Donmar Warehouse in London’s West End in July 2005.
Trade ReviewAeschylus’ Oresteia might be the cornerstone of Western drama, but it’s not an easy ask. However, in adaptor/director Robert Icke’s outstanding modern updating, which achieves the hurtling momentum of the best box-sets, it’s slickly compelling viewing…suffice to say there’s a firm sense…of a man in full and joyous command of his complex material… This is Greek drama humanised and modernised and it’s a tremendous acheivement.
* Evening Standard *
Icke’s heartfelt, occasionally blackly comic adaptation… life, in all its mundanity, heightened into something remarkable. Or maybe Chekhov and Icke’s skilfully wrought frame is a reminder that there never was anything more remarkable than life itself.
* Time Out *
Exhilarating - a fast moving narrative about the imprisoning effect of power. * Guardian *
