With rosy lighting, Stevie Nicks-style outfits, and blazing spoken-word poetry, Mary Stuart and her closest friends (also called the Marys) take the audience through a folk-rock gig set of songs, telling her story through a fiery feminist lens. Flitting between spoken word segments and song, the result is a loudly feminist reclamation of Mary’s voice, with rich storytelling and a beating heart.
The entire band of Marys is electric with energy and perfectly in sync, combining harmonies, bass, guitars, and violins. Guitarist Alli Von Hirschberg easily controls the mood and tone, as we switch between more rosy songs of Mary’s youth and innocence, to harsher tracks telling of her tragedy. Chromatic bass and dissonant vocals accentuate this harshness of her life, leading up to her imprisonment and exile after being controlled by her husbands and the Protestant resistance. Rona Johnson is a flaming, entrancing Mary, speaking directly to the audience through bitter rhymes.
The acting element of the “gig theatre show” allows us to glimpse further into Mary’s mind and her relationships, particularly through the cold and non-existent connection between her and Elizabeth (Izzie Atkinson). In a haunting duet, soft and sombre harmonies emphasise the distance between them, amplified by them singing with their backs to each other at opposite corners of the room. A few elements of Mary’s life are slightly overlooked such as her marriage to Bothwell, but the hour-long show makes no attempts to overload the audience with storytelling, instead using song to focus on Mary’s emotions, rather than the men controlling her.
Johnson’s songwriting is striking in its subtle symbolism and scorching lyrics condemning those responsible for Mary’s fate. ‘Mary (Come Down Swinging, Swinging)’ sees Mary reflecting on her legacy long after her death: “Mother, I’m a martyr now, but it cost me my free will.” ‘Prison Song’, the haunting and mesmerising ballad between Mary and Elizabeth is the standout song, with call and response and harmonies between the cousins conveying the barrier between them – “she keeps her glory/what’s in it for me? Hold me high.”
Director Katie Slater’s fiercely feminist, folk-rock triumph shows Mary not defined by her gory demise but humanised, and given an everlasting voice.
Mary: A Gig Theatre Show is running until 21 August at Gilded Balloon Patter House – Other Yin.
Buy tickets here.
Image by Carla Watson, provided to The Student as press.