Mary Said What She Said
Directed
by Robert Wilson. With Isabelle Huppert. Text by Darryl Pinckney.Music by
Ludovico Einaudi. A production by Theatre de Ville-Paris. Festival Theatre.
Adelaide Festival Centre. Adelaide Festival March 6-8 2026.
Credits. Costumes by Jacques Reynaud. Associate
director Charles Chemin. Associate set design. Annick Lavallee-Benny. Associate
light design Xavier Baron. Associate costume design Pascale Paume. Collaboration for Movement Fari Sarantani.
Sound design Nick Sagar. Makeup design Sylvie Cailler. Hair design Jocelyne
Milazzo. Translation from English Fabrice Scott.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Isabelle Huppert as Mary Stuart in Mary Said What She Said |
I open this review with a caveat. I do not speak French. I was seated in the fourth row of the Dress Circle, quite a distance away from Isabelle Huppert playing Mary Stuart Queen of Scotland and the Isles. I found it very difficult to read the fast surtitles although there was considerable repetition of historical facts and events and focus at the same time on Huppert’s remarkable performance. Perhaps like some I know I might have been less alienated in the stalls and more unconcerned with close attention to Pinckney’s text as it flashed across the screen.
Having said that,and occasionally choosing to escape the surtitles and focus entirely on the stage, Mary Said What She Said is an extraordinary production. That is hardly surprising given Robert Wilson’s legendary reputation as an experimental director of the avant-garde whose productions envelop the senses and infuse the intellect. Of course, with the legendary Isabelle Huppert as his Mary, Wilson is assured of a tour de force performance and for almost two hours Huppert commands the stage with a performance that galvanizes and commands complete immersion.
A plush red scalloped curtain
hangs across the proscenium arch. In the centre of the curtain on a small
screen is a film of a dog chasing its tail again and again. At times it stops,
staring bewildered out towards the auditorium. And then it begins again, a
premonition of what will come as Mary grapples with her demons, her history and
her tragic fate. Throughout the performance Darryl Pinckney’s poetic
translation is repeated time and time again, as though Mary is besieged by her
thoughts, her fears and her unjust fate.
The curtain rises on the vast Festival Theatre stage. A silhouetted figure stands facing the steel blue lit cyclorama with a single light beaming out towards the audience. Wilson’s design is enigmatic, inviting an audience to seek meaning. The bright light appears celestial, a gateway to destiny. Ludovico Enaudi’s composition is tempestuous, overpowering as an omen of impending doom. It is operatic, underscoring the drama of the performance and the passion of the text.
Slowly, Huppert turns towards the
audience. Her white face comes into
view, the lips part and Mary’s story unfolds in a monologue that tumbles from Mary’s
mind, sometimes recounting the events of her life, sometimes confused, abused,
betrayed,
Darryl Pinckney’s text
translation is relentless in its poetic account of Mary’s fated life. It is the
rousing libretto to Einaudi’s soaring composition. We see Mary through a
silhouetted figure against a light that leads her on away from this earthly
realm. Her fate is assured. Her destiny still uncertain.
Huppert plays a woman possessed
and obsessed. Born in 1542, Mary is crowned Queen of Scotland when she is only
one year old. At fifteen she sails to France to be betrothed to the Dauphin and
is accompanied by four maids all called Mary, as is Mary’s mother, the Dowager
Queen. At the age of 15 Mary is married. What follows is a life of three
marriages, plots, intrigue and murders and eventual imprisonment by Queen Elizabeth
to prevent any uprising. For eighteen years she is kept in captivity until
Elizabeth finally signs the death certificate. She is brutally beheaded in 1587,
leaving behind her son James who will one day succeed to the English throne on
the death of the Virgin Queen. It is Mary’s ultimate revenge from the grave.
On a bare stage, Huppert inhabits
the vast space with magnetic control. Her voice is amplified creating a
cavernous echo to her suffering, her betrayal by Mary Fleming and the
loyalty of her best friend Mary Beton. Stillness gives her strength. The
flailing arms and repetitive movements heighten the turmoil and the pain.
Memories of love and happier times sway in her dancing. Huppert’s performance
is remarkable. She is in every sense a queen. There is defiance and despair as
she reiterates the events and the people that have brought her to her terrible
fate.
Finally the flailing ends. The
repetitive railing against her fate subsides. Huppert unveils a Mary now
resigned to her fate, accepting of her imminent death. There is pause to
reflect on Mary’s cruel fate. It is here in the final moments of the play that
we may empathize. Huppert’s stylized performance of the fated historical figure
is highly representational, a marionette of history’s destiny. Huppert is one
possessed by the torments of the mind, an abstraction of her earthly fate. In
Wilson’s stylized vision Mary Said What She Said reveals more poignantly
the struggle for any woman to claim her rightful place in the world.
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| Isabelle Huppert is Mary Stuart in Mary Said What She Said. |
Perhaps this is the enlightenment that collaborative artists Wilson, Huppert, Pinckney and Einaudi have constructed and challenged the audience to see. It is for those who submit themselves to the search for the light to learn and understand what Mary said.He was due to appear and
Robert Wilson never lived to see Mary
Said What She Said performed to
standing ovations at this year’s Adelaide Festival. He died last year, leaving
a legacy that will be a lasting inspiration to theatre makers the world over. Huppert’s
performance as Mary Stuart in Mary Said What She Said is a shining testimony to Wilson’s gift to the
theatre. The Adelaide Festival performance is a gift to audiences fortunate
enough to see this trailblazing director’s work.
Photos by Lucie Jansch
