While writing this morning, my father interrupts to tell me, with bright-eyed boyish enthusiasm, that the worst of the economic crisis is behind us! Ok, I respond reluctantly, how are you so sure? And with all manner of authority, he says that a "stress test" was done, and all indicators point in the direction of economic growth. Hiding my smile, I ask one of the most cynical and skeptical (and yet optimistic) persons I know (yes, my father is a Sagittarian)… um, "stress test?"…. Yes! Stress test!…. the term, a shield of security, inspiring confidence, hope and happiness in him. I ask, who and what dictates this “stress test?” He doesn’t answer, but repeats that the “stress test” results show great promise that everything is changing, at which point, he rushes back to the incantatory television set. We both knew that my dissection of the term was irrelevant. What I was calling into question was the absurdity of the system of thought that the “stress test” and his hope, was built upon. This newly coined "official" term, splashed across the financial world's latest news, gaining momentum, gaining a collective agreement, blowing winds to generate mass happiness and mass action!
Despite the plethora of economic "scientists" in the field who factor an interpretation of human psychology, nowhere does human aspiration, begin as whim, emotion, speculation, and transform itself with such determination, into something "concrete," as it does on Wall Street. Confidence is inspired and people act. Value is created, prices rise, capital moves, ground movements happen, people are hired/fired, and societies restructured. All based on a collective hope and self-generated momentum. A self-fulfilled prophecy. One can argue the parallels in political decision-making through the drama of last night's performance of "Mary Stuart" on Broadway.
In Mary Stuart's world that is literally painted black and white through the play’s art direction, absolutely nothing is black and white. We are presented with drama rife with human inner conflict, murky and grey: two Hamlets rolled into one play: Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. Every character onstage is struggling to lock in a clear-cut black-and-white sense of order and thus, a sense of security. But of course security is an illusion, especially when power of this scale is at stake. Nothing comes for free. There is no peace on either side. It's not even a battle of choosing the lesser evil. It's an even-handed game—either choice carrying equally dire consequences.
Queen Elizabeth is faced with the dilemma, to behead her cousin and commit regicide, or not to behead her cousin. On the one hand, she holds an insistent fear of losing power and her life. On the other, an eternal sin on her conscience. She's kept Mary in prison for 19 years at the onset of the play. Although forces challenge her in both directions, she is at an impasse; this standstill tempered by reason and a vision of her future. What ultimately tips the scale, and seals her fate, is a matter of impulse, speculation, and a momentary passion.
The whisper of “public opinion” to behead Mary is presented as gaining momentum, and is fed to her with urgency by her advisers who fear their own positions of power. When an assassination attempt is made on her life, it provides fodder to justify her "God-given" right to action: it is divine intervention that saved her and is proof of her rightful claim to the throne. Then in a manner of fateful timing, she also discovers the betrayal of someone who claimed to have loved her. She believes her “womanly” emotions betrayed her, and in an effort to gain safety again, and in an effort to be like her father, to be “manly,” she “hardens” and issues the order to behead. But this “hardening” is misguided since it also is of the realm of the emotions… namely fear.
The fateful timing of all these events initiates her move. The standstill of action to behead or not to behead, shifts when the catalyst of emotion… passion, anger, pride and fear…. takes speed. But even then, when it's time to cross the line, she can't give the concrete order: it comes off as subtle as an exhale, but that which carries with it the momentum of the butterfly that flaps its wings and generates a tornado on the other side of the planet. The breath carries with it the great hope of her absolute power.
When all is said and done, this fate seems to have been there all her life. It was just the ticking time bomb of her conscience (and the world she was born into), just waiting to go off and release itself into the material world. Despite years of restraint, she rides a non-stop train of a self-fulfilled prophecy that had but one track to travel on. She was destined to act and manifest in the material world, the stuff of her inner conflict and her greatest desire.
This is merely one aspect of the play. The hell and slavery of lusty guilt, power, and pride; the eternal struggle for humility, security, and peace of mind; the persistence of conscience, karma, and an inherited fate, are all among the investigations of this play. Right now, I do not have succinct words to describe Mary’s unfolding range of inner turmoil, more intense because of her lack of access to her power. I am still chewing that food. But I will say, the journey through her turmoil, was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever witnessed on stage. The magnitude of the guilt and pride she has to wrestle with, in having her husband killed early in life, and in losing the highest ranking of her times, matched with the fact that the position of power is tied to the idea of being chosen by God, is epic. Because of Janet McTeer's monumental performance as Mary, we see the evenness of rank and power between this imprisoned woman and the queen, and her soul's bloody wrestle with her karma.
Deftly performed by an ensemble of master actors led by Harriet Walter (Elizabeth) and my heroine McTeer (Mary), who changed my life as Nora in Ibsen’s “The Doll House” over a decade ago, for which she won the Tony Award, and she will win one again for this role, hands down; impeccably and judiciously directed by Phyllida Lloyd; scene and costume crafted with Anthony Ward's poignant hand; all these elements feed the fire of this powerhouse of a play. Witnessing these storytellers, these shamans, was something so awesome, it had me gasping for air and teary-eyed, left me trembling and breathless. The actors took me on a journey where I was able to live several lives through these characters and experience all the history they embodied. The experience so great that I had to sit and let all my bodily and psychic functions adjust as I re-entered the Broadhurt Theater, New York City, 2009, as the theater emptied out. Coincidentally, it was a full moon and I discovered today, that it was also McTeer's birthday! Aaah, the magic of it all.
The stage design was minimalist. The colors, monochromatic. It was designed by Ward who did last year's "Macbeth" with Patrick Stewart, but without the industrial quality of that production. When the actors moved through this space, there was this feeling of a seismic shift. The juxtaposition of actors in space, were such powerful events and created landscapes of meaning. There was nothing to distract from the inner conflict of each character and the movement of the story. And when color was introduced, and it only happened twice, it made me jump. It was epic.
Contemporary suits were chosen for the men and I believe it’s a strong choice. It avoids the distraction of period costumes, of our judgment of masculine shapes that hold different standards then and now, and bridges these male soldiers into the context of our century of conformist political and corporate power. At one point in the play, I imagined George W. Bush being advised by all these people who create this sense of urgency and fear. They ultimately sell this fear to the public, but it starts with collectively planting that seed of their own fears in the leader first.
The play’s fictionalized account of history is the story of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth wrapped in a cosmic dance with each other, as they are catalysts for each other’s immortal wrestle with her own conscience.
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