Word: stuart
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...battle of women as well as monarchs--Mary Stuart, lovely and dignified in her imprisonment, and Elizabeth I, vain, cunning and as jealous of her rival's beauty as of her pretensions to power. In Mary Stuart, the two roles--the personal and political--are as irreconcilable as the two queens. In the end, the woman in each monarch must die to keep the English Protestant succession intact...
While Schiller's original text favors the romantic Scottish queen and casts Elizabeth as the villain, Stephen Spender's verse translation depicts both monarchs as victims of historical circumstance. If Elizabeth's decree obliges Mary to mount the scaffold, the Stuart queen has at least the consolation of dying surrounded by admirers and absolved from sin. Elizabeth, on the other hand, in her zeal to save appearances is finally condemned by them, retaining her crown only at the cost of losing the friendship and popular support that gave it meaning...
Robert Chapman's stately production of Mary Stuart succeeds handsomely in conveying the queen's dual tragedy, thanks to outstanding performances by Sarah Jane Lithgow and Laura Bartell in the leading roles. Stalking about her jail cell, villifying her jailers and judges with regal outrage, Lithgow's Mary Stuart dominates the first half of the play, outclassing every male actor in the show. Her controlled brilliance is more than matched, however, by Bartell's flamboyant portrayal of her English counterpart. Harsh, demanding, sometimes petty in her violent jealousies, Bartell's Elizabeth presents a clear dramatic contrast to Lithgow's more...
...last two acts belong to Elizabeth. Agonizing over the demands of state, Bartell depicts a queen whose courtly assurance is only the surface complement to self-doubt and womanly frailty. The plot of Mary Stuart tilts the balance of sympathy in favor of the Scottish queen; Bartell's achievement lies not only in making Elizabeth too a sympathetic figure, but in suggesting that hers may in fact be the greater tragedy...
After the victory, Ford's top lieutenants launched a low-key campaign around the country to convert undecided and pro-Reagan state and county chairmen. Somewhat lamely, Acting Campaign Chief Stuart Spencer insisted: "We're not pressuring them. We're just taking their temperature, seeing where they stand." Reagan's only motive for staying in after North Carolina would seem to be to keep Ford hewing to the right and to influence the party platform, the choice of Cabinet officers and the vice presidential nominee-perhaps Reagan himself, although Ford would seem to gain nothing from...