Two Sides of a Sovereign

riticsritics ritics Source: The Observer {The New Review} Edition: Country: UK Date: Sunday 18, December 2016 Page: 25 Area: 877 sq. cm Circulation: ABC 190661 Weekly Ad data: page rate £13,933.00, scc rate £58.00 Phone: 020 7278 2332 riticsKeyword: Lyttelton Theatre

Two sides of a sovereign Lia Williams and Juliet Stevenson switch roles at random from night to night in Robert Icke’s electrifying Mary Stuart, while Ruth Wilson brings a new toxic dimension to Hedda Gabler Susannah Clapp

@susannahclapp Mary Stuart I had expected startling diff erences in Almeida, London N1; until 21 Jan interpretation from these very diff erent actresses, whom I saw play both parts Hedda Gabler in back-to-back performances. What Lyttelton, London SE1; until 21 March is rivet ing is how close they are. Both show uneasy command as Elizabeth Oresteia Last year Robert Icke made and sumptuous composure as Mary. the most compelling drama in London. Both deliver Schiller’s corrugated Mary Stuart Now he stages , written arguments with the passionate fl uency in 1800 , to explosive eff ect. Schiller ’s of ideal politicians. They are so alike play has been stripped back, rewired. in their velvet trouser suits and white Icke’s adaptation is sculptural, rich and blouses that when they lie down, hands incisive. Hildegard Bechtler ’s bare, reaching towards each other, they round design creates an arena in which could be an opened-out version of characters try to break out of circular one person. The diff erences are tiny arguments. Juliet Stevenson and Lia but illuminating. Stevenson, naturally Williams are mighty. fervent, has a tremor in her voice that The dare of these actresses. registers crisis and excitement as if Mary Stuart deals with the relation a tide were sweeping through her. between Mary and Elizabeth I, and Her gestures come as if the result centres on an imaginary meeting of pent-up feeling. Williams is slyly between them. Stevenson and provocative, her voice even, the Williams go on stage each night not infl ections coming from variations in knowing who is to be Mary and who pitch and pace. She moves as if through Elizabeth. That is determined in front honey. Courtiers sit and rise at the click of the audience by the spin of a coin – of Elizabeth’s fi ngers. Stevenson clicks presumably a sovereign. with martial peremptoriness; Williams Not a gimmick but an insight. There as if she were trying to get something is nothing logical or inevitable about nasty off the end of her nail. who ends up in power. And these queens Both roles are tremendous. But are two sides of one coin: Catholic and the play is not called Mary Stuart Protestant; lover and virgin. Mary is in for nothing. Mary is the sympathetic prison, but the crown is also “a prison heart. And the one who is vindicated. cell with jewels”: it takes free will from A brilliantly staged last scene shows the woman who wears it.

ritics Source: The Observer {The New Review} Edition: Country: UK Date: Sunday 18, December 2016 Page: 25 Area: 877 sq. cm Circulation: ABC 190661 Weekly Ad data: page rate £13,933.00, scc rate £58.00 Phone: 020 7278 2332 Keyword: Lyttelton Theatre

her in a simple shift going towards with light. Everyone on stage could death, while Elizabeth is made up be an installation in an unforgiving for private isolation and public art gallery. Wilson, her face fl ickering consumption: white mask face; with fastidiousness, provides the most straitjacket bodice; scarlet hoops for interesting moments in a production her farthingale that look like entrails. that moves at an unusually uniform She revolves like a wedding cake. pace, as if everyone had taken a bit of An unexpectedly strong case is Hedda’s drug. Van Hove has banished made for Catholicism: in Mary’s corsets and aspidistras, and with them wonderful speech about the physical part of the play’s historical interest. world ; in her peace at death ; and Some dynamics are newly exposed – in a courtier’s memory of how his not least because Kyle Soller’s Tesman conversion awakened him to art. is younger and more vigorous than As he speaks, a faint thrum begins usual. But van Hove is over-insistent. to sound. Laura Marling’s specially Music plays at crucial moments: Joni composed music sends a vibration Mitchell’s Blue and Leonard Cohen’s through the action, adding rather than Hallelujah. Worse: notes on the piano emphasising. A beautiful song, played underscore some of the dialogue, as Mary prepares for execution, has the running not only underneath whole intimacy of unspoken thoughts. lines but (plink) between (plink) This is the nearest I’ve ever come to individual (plink) words. blubbing over a member of the royal There are some puzzles, too, in family. Not least because there is irony the updating. A video intercom is right up to the end. There is perpetual, used very eff ectively, with faces intricate – not just stage bellowing swimming into the room like ghosts. – debate. About how to prevent But why is the photo album not an making martyrs. About the division iPad? Where are the mobile phones? of Scotland from England. About how There is, though, no such diffi culty dextrous the powerful are in shifting in playwright Patrick Marber’s fl eet responsibility. About how a leader, new script. At a stroke he brushes up told that “the public has spoken”, the lascivious insinuations of Judge might know whether she really Brack: Rafe Spall gleams and bullies has a majority. On both occasions a eff ectively. “I shall occupy her fully,” whisper of recognition ran through the he gloats. It is a version that will have audience. As it did many other times in a life beyond this production. an electrifying production. Ruth Wilson has brought a new Wilson’s Hedda dimension to Hedda Gabler . I have has recoiled from seen compelling Heddas before, everything round her. Juliet Stevenson among them. But I have never seen an actor make so Her contempt is convincing the character’s toxic beyond rational aestheticism: she demands that suicide be committed “beautifully”. From the opening moments, when she appears with her back to the audience, splayed out over a piano, Wilson’s Hedda has recoiled from everything around her. Her contempt is beyond rational explanation. Despair has bleached her. She is an addict, hooked on disgust. Ivo van Hove’s production underlines the aestheticism. Jan Versweyveld ’s design is an enormous white box, at points fl ushed golden

Reproduced by Gorkana under licence from the NLA (newspapers), CLA (magazines), FT (Financial Times/ft.com) or other copyright owner. No further copying (including printing of digital cuttings), digital reproduction/forwarding of the cutting is permitted except under licence from the copyright owner. All FT content is copyright The Financial Times Ltd. Article Page 2 of 3 377150927 - STEKAR - A23578-1 - 120452045 Source: The Observer {The New Review} Edition: Country: UK Date: Sunday 18, December 2016 Page: 25 Area: 877 sq. cm Circulation: ABC 190661 Weekly Ad data: page rate £13,933.00, scc rate £58.00 Phone: 020 7278 2332 Keyword: Lyttelton Theatre riticsritics

Like ‘an opened-out version of the same person’: Lia Williams, left, as Elizabeth and Juliet Stevenson as Mary at the Almeida. Below: Kyle Soller and Ruth Wilson in Hedda Gabler at the National. Manuel Harlan; Jan Versweyveld