We’re in the court of Mary, Queen of Scots and members of her young entourage are dancing to Tilted by Christine and the Queens. It’s cool, francophone and fun. In a week when almost a quarter of a million under-25-year-olds registered to vote in a single day, playwright Linda McLean focuses on a historical moment when the political agenda was set by those whose sensibility was young, European and outward-looking.
In the French-raised Mary and her female retinue, she sees young people ready to replace the old masculine values of restraint and austerity with the feminine qualities of joy and collaboration. They stand in stark contrast to John Knox with his pulpit-thumping condemnation of anything that contradicts his Protestant worldview.
It is this binary conflict – symbolised in Karen Tennent’s elegant black-and-white costume designs – that is at the heart of McLean’s play. Her queen, played by Rona Morison, is smart, vivacious and quick witted; Knox, played by Jamie Sives, is pedantic, conceited and dull.
Where Liz Lochhead’s Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off and Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart told the historical story in terms of two powerful women (Mary in Scotland and Elizabeth I in England), McLean locates all the female energy in Mary’s court. In a clean, open staging by David Greig, Morison is surrounded by a chorus of six ladies in waiting (all called Mary – two more than the historical four). They’re a source of sisterly support for the Catholic Mary as she finds herself in territory hostile not only to her faith but also to the “monstrous regiment of women”.
Mary’s tragedy is her failure to overcome the conservative forces lined up against her. We identify with her not least because of Morison’s spirited performance, although it’s not really a fair fight. Neither play nor production does much to counter the view of Knox as a buttoned-up bully. Weighed down with liturgical quotes, Sives gives the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland the tone of a reasonable man, but finds little scope for nuance.
Aside from one thrilling climactic scene of confrontation between Mary and Knox, each circling the stage in an attempt to find a chink in the other’s intellectual armour, the greatest life of the play is with Mary and her retinue. Bouncing the fractured poetry of McLean’s script back and forth, the young performers lack vocal gravitas but make up for it in playfulness and girl-gang solidarity. And the production looks and sounds a treat as Simon Wilkinson’s lighting dissects the space with rock’n’roll severity and Michael John McCarthy’s score embraces everything from hymns and choral song to the Associates and Noah and the Whale while still seeming all of a piece.
• At Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, until 10 June. Box office: 0131-248 4848.
