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An outstanding performance, evocative design and haunting music, hindered by the language translation process.Summary
Rating
Good
Robert Wilson’s theatrical design work is renowned for its superb, often surreal and avant garde creativity. In Mary Said What She Said he joins forces with playwright Darryl Pinckney to portray the reeling thoughts of Mary Queen of Scots on the eve of her execution, directing Academy Award nominee Isabelle Huppert in a simply stunning performance.
The show begins with a projection on blood red, theatrical curtains of a dog spinning round to circus music, trying to catch its own tail. There’s immediately a suggestion of energetic futility and dramatic licence that speaks to the nature of Mary’s forthcoming address.
Huppert, her face masked by thick white make-up, is magnificent in a focussed enactment where every moment is related with searing intensity. She uses both her charismatic and her bodily presence down to the very tips of her fingers as, in an almost stream of consciousness style, she relates her story using quotes taken from actual letters referring to notorious plots Mary was accused of being involved in, all of which she disputes. There’s constant juxtaposition of truth, lies and belief as Huppert’s machine-gun-rapid delivery defiantly asserts Mary’s position.
Moving almost imperceptibly at first with her face unlit, Huppert’s body is silhouette and insubstantial: reality again uncertain, and at times it’s unclear if she’s lip-synching to a pre-recorded track or if the words are being spoken. She demands our absolute concentration. Later, she careers through choreographed movements, powerfully owning the stage, whilst her whirling words remind us that the intricate political environment of Mary’s life was often a dance itself.
Wilson manufactures extraordinarily evocative visual design that viscerally captures the dreich haar of the Scotland Mary hates, before offering subtle shifts of colour to sympathetically relay her emotions – ideas of grief, passion, and temporal change. At one point he introduces a heavenly cloud scene with truly breathtaking staging. Occasionally the stage is partitioned, shrinking her space and echoing her confinement. Piercing light bursts shockingly into the darkness; a visual metaphor of extreme emotion. Throughout,elegant, haunting music by Ludovico Einaudi provides an exquisite backdrop to the whole, actively propelling the narrative even as Huppert moves in barely visible increments.
Pinckney’s text is impressively lyrical, binding us into Mary’s intensity. Repetitive and insistent, its carefully crafted form and performativity makes her belief in her own assertions entirely convincing. The language is poetic and expressive, often returning to close a loop and remind us of the inescapability of Mary’s tragic life. We’re persistently reminded of four loyal servant Marys; perhaps more deceptive than she claims them to be, as the show title refers to incriminating testimony given against their mistress by one of them. We hear of lovers, husbands and children and are empowered to recognise the many facets of a complex, possibly misunderstood woman and outcast sovereign; a victim of prejudice and misogyny, also responsible for many deaths.
Performed almost entirely in French, the monologue is recreated in English on surtitles and to each side of the stage and it’s this that may prove problematic for a non-French speaking spectator. Because the delivery is at times so rapid, it’s barely possible to switch one’s gaze from text to stage and still follow the performance in real time. For me it was a very demanding 90 minutes, with a constant sense I might be missing something either written or performed, and so detracted from an otherwise excellent production.
However, this show is bewitchingly absorbing and has a compelling, rhythmic atmosphere and intricate form that demands engagement on some level until the very end, whether you choose to read the words, listen in, or watch the stunning stage work.
Produced by Théâtre de la Ville–Paris
Directed, set and light design by: Robert Wilson
Text by: Darryl Pinckney
Music by: Ludovico Einaudi
Mary Said What She Said plays at the Barbican until Sunday 12 May. Further details can be found here.
