Mary Queen of Scots has become something of a mythic figure in the popular imagination, a symbol of feminine agency and of power, principles and heroism. The truth, it seems, is rather less dignified. Even so, from being anointed Queen at six days old, to losing her head in a public spectacle at just 44, this was no ordinary life.
Mary Said What She Said is an intense 90-minute monologue set on the eve of her execution. Isabelle Huppert is absolutely hypnotic as the frantic Queen, ranting and raving, screaming her lines at the audience as she paces maniacally across the stage. But for the first 20 minutes, she barely moves at all, appearing as if a statue, a silhouette framed by intense light from the back of the stage. The words fly from her mouth, as tortured in their delivery as her constrained body is in holding its pose.
