BEDLAM
presents
MARY STUART
by Friedrich Schiller
adapted by Rachel Vail
from the translation by Joseph Mellish
This play emerged from the question it felt like a lot of the theater world had all been asking ourselves for a while: how do you make theater when you’re trapped in your apartment? And one answer we came to was, of course, make your apartment a theater. What if, we thought, we could get a couple people over to my actual Brooklyn fourth-floor walkup apartment and do a play in there? And then film each act of the play in a single take, so it feels like a live theatrical event?
And that’s when we thought of MARY STUART. The play is grappling with national questions while resolutely focused on the personal scale: is it possible to be a “good” ruler? can power be virtuous? or does being in charge inherently lead to abuses of power? and what is the cost of striving to be good in an inherently flawed political system?
Elizabeth / Hannah / O’Kelly: Shirine Babb
Mary / Talbot / Bellievre: Violeta Picayo
Mortimer / Burleigh / Melvil: Simon Schaitkin
Leicester / Paulet / Davison: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
Music by Hayden Kline
Lighting by Emma Garey Levine
Part of Bedlam’s 2021 Virtual Season
Available to stream on demand
PRESS
Audacious […] This “Mary Stuart,” adapted by Rachel Vail from the translation by Joseph Mellish, works a bold contrast between the aureate language and the home-cooked D.I.Y. vibe of the production, which has the same playful quality the scrappy and always inventive Bedlam is known for […]
The four actors give generous performances, directed by Zachary Elkind with a snappiness that allows for each to contain multitudes: speedy, minute costume changes (a scarf, a pair of glasses, a blazer, a baseball cap) create the illusion of a whole English court without even the briefest interruption of a scene.
— The New York Times
