Schiller's Mary Stuart has been surprisingly newsworthy of late, partly due to the success of Phyllida Lloyd's modern-dress production on Broadway, but also when the unfortunate actor playing Mortimer at the Vienna Burgtheater cut his throat for real last year on a prop knife that hadn't been blunted.
Terry Hands's production adheres rigorously to period detail, but nonetheless feels extremely topical. In Mike Poulton's vibrant new version, England emerges as a paranoid state on high-security alert, where the detention of suspects does not bear very close scrutiny.
If Shakespeare's historical dramas hold a mirror to our national virtues, Schiller presents a reflection that is rather less flattering. Elizabeth, who spends the early part of the drama speaking in aphorisms calculated to play well in public, privately condemns her people as "greasy filth and scum".
The highlight is the great scene in which Schiller brings the two queens together for a confrontation that never occurred in life. Claire Price's Elizabeth conceals a vulnerable core within a glittering cloak of realpolitik; Marina Hands's intemperate, scathing Mary is cut from the same regal mould as her cousin, but lacks the media training. The exultant manner in which she wins the verbal cat fight and seals her doom is, literally, the definition of losing one's head.
There are outstanding contributions from Owen Teale's insidious Burghley, Steffan Rhodri's slippery Leicester and Lee Haven-Jones's impetuous Mortimer, whose self-sacrifice thankfully passes without mishap. The stage knives have been rendered harmless, but Hands's interpretation is razor-sharp.
