Programme Notes

In October 2002 Third Angel was invited by Nationaltheater Mannheim to make a piece of work in response to Maria Stuart by Friedrich von Schiller for the Schillertage festival the following year.

We arrived in Mannheim on Sunday 15 June 2003, and started making the piece the next day. We had just 8 days making time. This was scary, but also liberating. We had to make decisions fast, and stick to them. We had to trust our making process to take us in the right direction.

This was an experiment for us, as all of our work is. Third Angel is dedicated to devising and creating new performance and had never used or responded to a pre-written text before. Consequently the resulting show was as much about theatricality and staging someone else's words as it was about Schiller's story. The process turned out to be about trying to combine Third Angel's performance style and Schiller's voice.

Research. We started armed with the fruits of several days reading, discussion and visits to the British and Scottish Libraries (in person and via the internet). We had two translations of the play, newspaper articles, transcriptions of real letters written by Mary, maps, floorplans and biographies of Mary and Elizabeth - one based purely on letters written at the time. We knew we were interested in the difference between the written word (letters, warrants, scripts) and the spoken word, both in Schiller's play, and also in live performance.

Paper was also very important to us - the play text, the notes and lists we wrote and the letters we read. When we were little we'd all made paper crowns to dress up in and we were aware of the difference between desiring to be a Queen and the reality. To us the paper also symbolised the fragility of royalty and religion in Tudor England. Dressed up, we reminded ourselves of chess pieces, playing a strategic, careful game.

We enjoyed the duplicity in Schiller's script, and the duplicity we discovered in historical research. The public face verses the private face. The powerful women in a predominantly male political world. The double dealing between factions...

It was a fascinating experiment for us; it was great to make a piece of work for a specific festival and space, without having to worry about touring it afterwards. We'd like to thank all of the production, technical and administrative staff at Nationaltheater Mannheim for inviting us to take part, and for all their support.