Mary Said What She Said has been hotly anticipated at this year’s Adelaide Festival, since well out seasons in Europe. A precise, obsessive performance from Isabelle Huppert, supremely talented actor and ‘France’s Meryl Streep’.
A one-character show, with intense score, increasingly unhinged monologue and repetitive stage blocking, this play, directed by the late Robert Wilson, is like standing above a whirlpool that threatens to swallow you whole.
The play is a protracted intimate moment with Mary Queen of Scots (played by Huppert) in her final days before execution. The emphasis is in the title of the piece – Mary Said What She Said – she was on trial under suspicion of arranging the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley, in order to marry her lover, James Hepburn, as well as mounting religious tension and doubts of her capacity as a ruler.
She had become a pariah in her own kingdom, and this play, which is effectively an embittered diatribe against her treacherers, her voice is finally heard as she protests her condemnation to death.
The Queen’s resolve, at once bloodthirsty, sorrowful and bitter, is portrayed wonderfully by Huppert. The progressive mania of her performance reminds me of her character in The Piano Teacher, a film so disturbing because of Huppert’s embodiment of psychopathic manipulation and masochism.
As Mary, she bellows, cackles, mutters and hexes. The entire first scene she is a silhouette, her body in Tudor dress, statuesque and her face in shadow, as she regales her audience of her seductive powers as a young woman, her skin as fair and white as snow.
Of course, this evokes the French fairytale of Blanche Neige or Snow White, and foreshadows the abandonment of her cousin Elizabeth I, Queen of England – the ‘poisoned apple’ is her betrayal.
The strength of the play is in the script, written by Darryl Pinckney, and delivered in French with subtitles on screen. Huppert reels it off effortlessly, sometimes barely pausing to breathe, holding her body tight and unyieldingly, swaying or pacing back and forth. It has a relentless pace and frequent repetitive refrains, combined with the score by luminary composer, Ludovico Einaudi.
The physical theatre elements are also exceptional. She is a master of “stillness” in her menacing, stylised way, she often stands rigid, as if rooted to the spot, flailing her arms as if a dark sorcery were surging through her body. In a few moments in the play, the stage falls to blackness and the spotlight zeros in on her face only, in a wide, wild, silent scream gesture. This is not a relaxing play.
The set is sparse with heavy blackout curtains that seem to emulate the executioner’s guillotine as they threaten to close, only to half way, at various moments in the performance. The floodlit base of the stage and intense spotlighting gives Huppert the air of a hunted animal, and enhances her desperation.
At one point, the stage is filled with liquid-looking smoke, and she walks behind a translucent screen, a recording of her son’s childlike voice echoing through the theatre, showing how haunted she is by memory. Her son of course is James VI, who had been separated from her, and became the king of Scotland at only 13 months old, following his mother’s forced abdication.
This scene pulls at the heart-strings as we realise how cruelly she was separated from her son, Mary is a mother in this moment, not a murderess. She yearns for him, calling his name, and he is nowhere to be seen, the echolalia of his voice resounding in voiceover.
Tender moments like this are in contrast to the end of the play, where, brutalised beyond redemption, the words drip like poison from her lips, as she says she will set the hounds on her betrayers, and condemn them to be mauled to death. Huppert cowers and stoops for the first time, looking at once galled and vicious.
Through this play, Wilson and Huppert have created a much more complex image of Mary of Scotland than more romantic popular interpretations. Parallels might be drawn here with Lady Macbeth, yet it is hard to imagine anyone except Huppert able to claim such a ruthless, guileful character with such notoriety.
At ninety minutes, the play is testimony to the power of collaboration, as a world-class writer, director and actor converge to retell an historical story from a deeply intimate lens. Full of augury and pathos, Mary Said What She Said is overwhelming in its power to immerse audiences anew in one of history’s most profound stories of corruption and treachery.
Mary Said What She Said
Festival Theatre – Adelaide Festival Centre, King William Road, Adelaide
Season: 6 – 8 March 2026 (ended)
Information: www.adelaidefestival.com.au
Images: Isabelle Huppert in Mary Said What She Said – photos by Lucie Jansch
Review: Leila Lois