Isabelle Huppert astounds in Mary Said What She Said — review

“I am a vain shadow,” declares Isabelle Huppert’s Mary Stuart in the discomfiting, dazzling solo show Mary Said What She Said, in its brief run at London’s Barbican. And that is, to some extent, how she appears: an unquiet spirit haunting the stage, forever pinned on the eve of execution — still proclaiming her innocence, her rank and her betrayal; still feverishly recalling key moments and figures from her tragic life.

In Robert Wilson’s austere, demanding production by the Théâtre de la Ville-Paris (presented in French with English surtitles), we first see her silhouetted against a vast silvery-blue sky and encased in a stiff, glistening black robe like a china doll. At the outset she barely moves as she embarks on her litany, composed by writer Darryl Pinckney from letters written by the 16th-century monarch during her long incarceration. But almost imperceptibly, she glides forwards, her features acquiring definition, her mouth a red gash across her face, as she spills out her words — vivid emissaries from the eve of death.

Facts peep through — her childhood in France, her three marriages, the murder of her second husband, the accusation of treason levelled at her by her cousin Elizabeth I — and the text gradually shifts through her life. It’s delivered like a piece of baroque music, memories piling in, recurring over and over, nagging at her. Certain passages repeat on a loop — particularly one concerning her attendants, also all named Mary — sometimes spoken aloud by Huppert, sometimes echoing around her in recordings of her own voice.

Her words are sometimes delivered in a monotone, but in the style of her writing we get glimpses of what Mary might be like as a person: proud, witty, scornful, intelligent, tormented. She can be brutally funny — describing, for instance, Catherine de’ Medici, who insisted on wearing all her jewellery at once — and scathingly dismissive. There is poetry here, and pungency. There is also pain, over her separation from her son (James VI of Scotland, later James I of England) and the fate of her dogs. As time passes, the execution block features more and more in her thoughts.

There’s a Beckettian quality to the piece, with the repeating sequences sometimes whispered, sometimes jabbered at almost impenetrable velocity. Mary, here, feels related to Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days or the disembodied mouth in Not I. In Wilson’s staging she appears more an objet d’art than a person: the light shifts with her mood, Ludovico Einaudi’s music swells and surges, almost drowning her out. Huppert manoeuvres between two strips of light, at one point dancing like a figure in a music box, at another skimming back and forth, waving her arms stiffly like an automaton, periodically freezing, her face a rictus of horror.

It’s impressive, opaque, uncompromising. And there’s a chilly quality to it all: this is a style of theatre that challenges the audience and holds us at arm’s length. But, in a sense, that’s the point: Mary is suspended in purgatory, beyond our reach, turning over and over the contradictions of her life — an imprisoned queen, a woman accused of betrayal who has herself been betrayed.

Huppert is astounding: her delivery mesmerising, her movement precise, her gaze unblinking, her presence riveting. A tough, unique piece of work.

★★★☆☆

barbican.org.uk