If to the victor goes the spoils, then at least the vanquished gets a play. Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart romanticizes the last days in the life of a martyred queen and her captors, chronicling the no-win aspect of the monarchy system’s intertwined personal and political interests. Although the Meadow Brook Theatre production is of a new version of the play by Peter Oswald, director Travis W. Walter and team preserve the methodical feel of a costume drama, albeit one whose single-minded pomp overshoots the inevitable circumstance.
Although the titular Mary, Queen of Scotland (Julia Glander), and Elizabeth, Queen of England (Ruth Crawford), are first cousins, and although Elizabeth answered Mary’s desperate plea for protection by imprisoning her for nearly nineteen years, the two have never met. By way of history, Mary’s onetime claim to the throne of England — a rationale contingent on Elizabeth’s bastard status — tasted extra bitter in light of her abhorred Catholicism; her marriage to the man believed to have killed her previous husband was a scandal; her supposed participation in a whopping three assassination attempts — from the closely watched confines of English prisons, no less — appears unlikely at best. Yet the Mary of 1587, when the play opens, receives the expected guilty verdict from her treason trial with the gentle patience of a saint; her only request is to have an audience at long last with her cousin/captor and personally plead her case. Repentant for past sins, steadfast in her faith, and noble to a fault, Glander’s Mary bangs the gong of resolute martyrdom without yield (as do Reid G. Johnson’s positively angelic lighting cues).
Yet there are two women at the fore in this play. Elizabeth’s journey concerns being handed the guilty verdict and tasked with signing the death warrant for her supposed foe, all while being micromanaged by advisers who second-guess her because of her sex. This look at the opposite end of the spectrum illuminates the parallel prisons of these unusually powerful women — the queen that things are done to, versus the queen that has no choice but to do them. Crawford employs flirtatious subservience suggestive of crafty demurring to her male inferiors, but this flighty Elizabeth never manages to lower the boom; without a counterpoint to her coquettish tittering, her clear words of power don’t stick.
Because every monarchy is connected to every other monarchy (by marriage or otherwise), Mary’s fate crosses over into foreign policy, and the political expediency of actually carrying out her sentence is argued by a trio of engaging noblemen. Thomas D. Mahard’s unflinching advocacy for the national interest, Mark Rademacher’s emotional case for mercy, and elevated Loren Bass’s personal advantage with the Queen pit them with and against her and each other in heated debates and closed-door dealings that reveal procedural gray areas and crucial duplicity. Mirroring Elizabeth’s allies are Mary’s confidantes and supporters, from a keening, zealous nurse (Trudy Mason) to a secretly converted guard (Jordan Whalen) with the best and worst of brave intentions. The cast numbers fourteen in all, some of whom play a handful each of minor roles; among the best of these characters is the jailer Paulet, whose admirable duty to his charge is rendered true and beautifully earned by Paul Riopelle.
The production’s nearly three hours are writ large on designer Brian Kessler’s mostly empty set, which Walter seems keen on filling with big voices and bigger movements. Similar evocations of the capital-C Classics permeate Mike Duncan’s murmuring instrumentals and Liz Moore’s painstakingly sumptuous costumes. Kessler does have an ace up his sleeve, one overwhelming effect that presages what strives to be the most crucial scene of the play — a cacophonous upper-crust showdown pulled out of joint by its stubborn focus on posturing.
In its one-sided take on a two-sided story, this Mary Stuart hurriedly establishes its conclusions and then doggedly maintains them. The result is a grandiose period effort marked by lush details, but also by a trumpeting righteousness whose dependence on types hems in a talented cast.