Edinburgh International Festival dance review: Scottish Ballet's Mary, Queen of Scots
The iconic title character is upstaged by an older Queen Elizabeth in Scottish Ballet’s vivid portrayal of the parallel courts of Scotland and England, writes Lucy Ribchester
DANCE
Mary, Queen of Scots ★★★★
Festival Theatre, until 17 August
Mary, Queen of Scots has an inexorable grip on the Scottish imagination; a reminder that our history is as bloody as it is proud. Or perhaps a totem to the notion that women, no matter how powerful they become, must always watch their backs.
Scottish Ballet’s new version of the Mary tale enters a vast and rich tradition of re-tellings, and stamps its own mark on the story with a vivid eye for the sexiness, grotesquery, grandeur and paranoia of the parallel courts of England and Scotland. Director James Bonas and choreographer Sophie Laplane have chosen the lens of Queen Elizabeth in her dying days through which to view Mary. In Elizabeth’s fragmented memories and feverish fantasies we journey from Mary’s childhood marriage to the Dauphin all the way to her afterlife as a startling, resurrected stain on Elizabeth’s conscience.
The older Elizabeth is danced by Charlotta Öfverholm, a mature performer who brings a wisdom and vulnerability to her movement that is endlessly compelling to watch. As the piece opens she is almost naked, frolicking in a haze of feathers, playful as a child, skittish as a deeply disturbed woman. Aided by a Jester in a lime-green Pierrot-meets-garden-gnome outfit (a nimble Kayla-Maree Tarantolo), she conjures up visions of her past, sometimes entering the action to grasp for Mary (Roseanna Leney), or to mirror her pregnancy in a mournful dance-echo, sometimes watching from the sidelines or disappearing.
Elizabeth’s younger self meanwhile is danced by Harvey Littlefield, occasionally on stilts, boldly visualising the uncanny difference between the imposing masculine role Elizabeth had to cultivate and the fragile soul within. Laplane’s choreography flows like quicksilver through different styles and influences, bringing in graceful courtly posturing, flat-footed earthy ceilidhs and even glimpses of tango in a sultry duet between Mary and Darnley.
Similarly Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson’s original score is a silky mash-up of Scottish melodies, Elizabethan jigs and pure musical drama. But overall the piece ends up hovering between two stools, unsure if it wants to be a collage of arresting visual metaphors speaking to Elizabeth’s guilt, or a straightforward narrative of the beats of Mary’s life. Despite some striking duets (particularly Rizzio and Darnley’s sensual tussling) the real intrigue takes place when Öfverholm is on stage, dancing like a ghost through her past. In the end the more psychologically interesting queen here isn’t Mary at all, but Elizabeth.
LUCY RIBCHESTER
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