Mary

The Scottish playwright Rona Munro is most famous for The James Plays a cycle of plays about the medieval Stuart monarchs of Scotland. The first three were acclaimed at the National Theatre of Scotland and in London. The fourth, James IV: The Queen of the Fight, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival this year, while the fifth, Katherine, will debut in 2023 and the final one about James VI/James I will complete the cycle. This play, about Mary Queen of Scots, is a companion piece but works as a standalone and Munro has given its world premiere to the Hampstead Theatre, site of some earlier triumphs for her.

It’s a tight 90 minute piece which doesn’t even try to cover Mary Queen of Scots’ event filled life (you’d need an HBO miniseries for that), but instead zones in on a crucial, and perhaps defining, moment for her, about which historians have since differed. Was Mary raped by James, Earl of Bothwell to force her into a marriage that briefly gave him power but ultimately destroyed them both?

Munro makes a very strong case that history, mostly written by men, gaslights women like Mary. What happened to her was spun as her bad choices or merely her lust, which confirmed that she was unfit to rule and so she was forced to abdicate in favor of her baby son. The piece hinges therefore on the issue of sexual consent, a very topical theme for us now. Munro’s thesis is that this served the interests of those grabbing for power during that febrile political moment in 1567, just after the murder of Darnley, Mary’s second husband and the father of her baby.

Mary (Meg Watson) herself barely features in the play. Instead this is essentially a three hander where the case for an against her is played out, if anything rather too schematically. Douglas Henshall (of Shetland fame) brings his leading man charisma to the role of Lord James Melville, an experienced diplomat who was Mary’s most loyal champion. Munro uses him to explore how such good and moral men, despite caring so much, may not be enough of an ally when the moment needs it.

The other two characters are fictional creations to embody two other perspectives on Mary. There’s Agnes (Rona Morison), who we first see as a cunning but rather insolent servant, but who quickly climbs the greasy pole when the anti Mary faction gains supremacy. She voices the common/populist view of Mary, spun by the followers of John Knox, that she was a duplicitous harlot still under the influence of the corrupt and self-serving French.

The third position is embodied in Thompson (Brian Vernel), the pragmatic politician and ‘young man in a hurry’. Munro is great on the palace intrigue and Ashley Martin-Davis’ crepuscular set, all gloomy chambers, adds to the mood of treachery. Munro goes beyond the soap opera of mere palace intrigue however, locating the arguments firmly in the context of the unfolding political turmoil. She’s also good on applying a contemporary, often hip, sensibility to her medieval characters, who all swear in the modern style. This lends it an immediacy and dispenses with the tired tropes of TV costume dramas.

Although director Roxana Silbert gives it clarity it is all far too static, save for a brief coup de theatre at the finale. The cast, although fine, struggle with dialogue which, too often, is heavy on exposition and unless you know your Tudor history, you might struggle. On the other hand, as Tom Stoppard famously put it, about his own plays, “If you don’t understand it, look it up”.

The play is certainly a great amuse bouche for episodes of 5 and 6 of the James cycle.

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