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THEATREWORKS
ADDENDA
MARY STUART
by FriedrichSchiller
List of Sources
Berlin, Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism (Princeton, 1999).
Brockett, Oscar. History of the Theatre (Boston, 1974).
Brown, John Russell, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Theatre (Oxford, 1995).
Fraser, Antonia. Mary Queen of Scots (new York, 1969).
Guy, John. Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart (new York, 2004).
Nagler, A. M, ed. A Source Book in Theatrical History (New York, 1952).
Unger, Frederick, ed. Friedrich Schiller: An Anthology for Our Time (New York, 1959).
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Friedrich Schiller was born on November 10,
1759,in the town of Marbach am Neckar in
Germany. The son of an army officer, at sixteen
he was forced by the Duke of Wurttemberg to
enter military school. He entered the department
of medicine, and began to write poetry, and then
plays. In 1781 his play The Robbers became the
talk of Germany. After its staged performance,
Schiller was arrested and sentenced to 14 days
in prison, and forbidden to publish and further
work by the Duke. Schiller fled to Mannheim,
where he became the resident dramatist to the
state theater. Between 1787-1798 he wrote no
plays, concentrating instead on historical studies,
and writing books on the revolt of the
Netherlands and the Thirty Years War. The books
won him an appointment as professor of history
at Jena, only five miles away from Weimar, the
home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The two
men eventually became friends, and in 1798
Schiller moved to Weimar, where he wrote Mary
Stuart and his most mature plays. In 1802 he
was enobled by the Duke of Weimar, adding the
“von” to his name. He died of tuberculosis in
1805, at the age of 45.
STORM & STRESS
During the 1770’s German Dramatists revolted again the rationalism of their neoclassical past,
writing plays of rhapsodic emotionalism, and discarding the constraints of formal structure.
Shakespeare became their dramatic model, and Shakespearomanie [“Shakespeare mania”] swept
away classical rules in favor of wider historical themes, with multiple settings and a wide range of
characters. The Sturm und Drang [“Storm and Stress’] school reached its height with The Robbers,
a play Schiller began at school. The play is about two brothers, one of whom convinces his father
that his other son is not worthy of parental love. The rejected son, Karl Moor, defiantly forms a band
of robbers who have wild times in the forests of Bohemia, and then finally returns home to find his
father imprisoned by the wicked brother. Karl is reconciled with his father who dies in his arms, then
he murders his fiancée from a perverted sense of honor, and finally he leaves, looking for a poor
man who will benefit from the reward for his capture. When the sprawling play was premiered on
stage in January, 1782, an eye witness reported: “The theatre resembled a madhouse: rolling eyes,
clenched fists, stamping feet, hoarse shouts in the auditorium! Complete strangers embraced each
other in tears, women staggered almost fainting towards the exits. It was a general dissolution as in
the time of chaos, from whose mists, a new creation springs forth.”
THE THEATRE AT WEIMAR
By the time Schiller arrived in Weimar to
collaborate with Goethe at the state theatre
there, both men had moved away from the
excesses of Sturm und Drang, with the goal of
reconciling form and passion, thought and
feeling in a new theatre. They returned to writing
in verse and more restrained formal structures,
proposing to create a theatre that would lead
spectators into a realm of ideal truth and beauty.
The movement became known as “Weimar
Classicism.” Goethe took charge of productions,
and assumed the position of artistic director--a
position which allowed him to become Weimar’s
aesthetic dictator.
FINDING THE ACTORS
In a journal, Goethe explains how he went about auditioning an actor: “If his appearance and
deportment pleased me, I made him read, in order to test the power and extent of his voice, as well
as the capabilities of his mind. I gave him some sublime passage from a great poet, to see whether
he was capable of feeling and expressing what was really great; then something passionate and
wild, to prove his power. I then went to something marked by sense and smartness, something
ironical and witty, to see how he treated such things, and whether he possessed sufficient freedom.
Then I gave him something in which was represented the pain of a wounded heart, the suffering of
a great soul, that I might leartn whether he had in his power to express pathos. If he satisfied me in
all these numerous particulars, I had a well grounded hope of making him a very important actor.”
THE RULES FOR ACTORS
Goethe aimed to create a series of graceful idealized pictures on the proscenium stage of the
Weimar theatre, paying great attention to how the actors spoke and moved, seeking a style that
went beyond realism to serve poetic drama. Two of the actors he coached kept a record of his
instructions, which were later assembled into a series of maxims. Here are a few:
#35 First of all, the player must consider that he should not only imitate nature but also portray it
ideally, thereby, in his presentation, uniting the true with the beautiful.
#41 It is an important point that when two are acting together, the speaker should always move
upstage, while the one who has stopped speaking should move slightly downstage. If this
advantageous shifting is carried out with skill--and through practice it can be done with great ease-then the best effect is achieved for the eye as well as for the intelligibility of the declamation. An actor
who masters this will produce a very beautiful effect when acting with others who are equally trained.
#45 To be avoided: the newfangled fashion of hiding one hand behind the lapel of the coat.
#48 The two middle fingers should always stay together; the thumb, the index and little finger should
be somewhat bent. In this manner the hand is in its proper position and ready for movement.
#67 The actor, especially the one who has to play lovers and light parts, should keep a pair of
slippers on stage in which to rehearse, and he will soon notice the good results.
#82 The stage and the auditorium, the actors and the spectators, together represent the theatrical entity.
#83 The stage is to be regarded as a figureless tableau for which the actor supplies the figure.
AN IDEAL AUDIENCE
According to Goethe, a great theatre needs a great audience, and in Weimar he found one: “Here
more than anywhere else is the drama loved and the theater very well attended. . . the more
cultured part of the population had developed a really good and solid taste, which gradually spread
to the lower classes. Consequently a very poor company could achieve success nowhere less than
here. For although it would be assured against the danger of being hooted off the stage--since such
license was never allowed here--yet in a very short time the attendance would fall off considerably.
Nowhere, however, can a better company develop from a poor one in a shorter time than in Weimar.
For, aside from the fact that an actor must exert all his powers while playing before a crowd of
people who have seen the best in Germany, he also has to fear the criticisms of the experts whose
opinions carry great weight with the public of Weimar, as well as with that in all Germany.”
THE STAGE AS A MORAL INSTITUTION
Goethe and Schiller shared a common vision of theatre as moral and social force. In his defense of
the stage, Schiller says the wise legislator has “selected the stage as the best means of opening an
endless sphere to the spirit thirsting for action, of feeding all spiritual powers without straining any,
and of combining with the cultivation of the mind and emotions with the noblest entertainment.”
Schiller thought that theatre belonged with religion and law as instrumental in bringing perfection to
human culture. He says, “in the dreams of this artificial world, we can forget the real one. We find
ourselves once more. Our feeling reawakens. Wholesome passions stir our slumbering nature and
the blood begins to circulate in our veins with renewed vigor.”
FREEDOM & TRAGEDY
Isaiah Berlin writes: “Schiller is constantly harping upon the fact that the only thing which makes
man human is the fact that he is able to rise above nature and mould her, crush her, subjugate her to
his beautiful, unfettered, morally directed will. . . He constantly speaks of spiritual freedom: freedom
of reason, the kingdom of freedom, freedom of mind, moral freedom, the free intelligence--a favorite
very phrase--holy freedom, the impregnable citadel of freedom . . . Schiller’s theory of tragedy is
founded upon this notion of freedom . . . Tragedy does not consist in the mere spectacle of
suffering. . .The only thing which can be regarded as properly tragic is resistance, resistance on the
part of a man to whatever it is that oppresses him.”
MARY STUART
Goethe’s many productions in Weimar were praised extravagantly by some, and criticized as too
uniform by others. Though widely regarded as the “universal” genius of his country, his own plays
were not theatrically successful. It was Schiller who became the great theatrical genius of Weimar
Classicism, in a series of late, complex, historically grounded plays which proved to be both
philosophically engaging and dramatically thrilling. Mary Stuart, written in 1800, is one of the
masterpieces of this brief period. Schiller borrowed from history for his plot and characters.
HISTORY + FICTION: THE CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1542-1587). She was the
only legitimate child of James V of Scotland, and her father
died six days after she was born. She was crowned nine
days later. At 16, she married the French Dauphin, who
then became Francis I, King of France before dying a year
later. Mary returned to Scotland, and married her first
cousin, Lord Darnley, in 1561. The marriage was an
unhappy one, and Darnley murdered her personal
secretary, Rizzio, before being murdered himself in 1567.
Mary then married the Earl of Bothwell, who orchestrated
her husband’s murder. She was imprisoned in Lochleven
Castle after a Scottish uprising, and forced to abdicate in
favor of her infant son James. She escaped in 1568,
seeking refuge in England, but was seen as a threat to the
throne on account of her royal birth and Catholicism. She
was detained in noble houses, and never allowed to see her
cousin, Queen Elizabeth. She was tried and found guilty for
conspiring with Thomas Babington, who planned to rescue
Mary and assassinate Queen Elizabeth, and executed 1587.
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603). The daughter of Henry VIII
and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was declared illegitimate when
she was two years old, after her mother was tried and
beheaded on charges of adultery. She was restored to the
throne after the death of Queen Mary I, whose Catholicism
had drenched England with religious persecution. She
established the English Protestant Church, with herself as
supreme governor, but under her reign religious persecution
decreased. She remained a virgin all her life, while being
courted by most of the crowned heads of Europe. She
survived at least fifteen assassination attempts while on the
throne. One year after Mary’s execution, England defeated
the Spanish Armada, crowning a reign noted for its stability
and forging of national identity.
William Cecil, Baron Burleigh (1522-1598). Chief advisor
to Queen Elizabeth, twice Secretary of State and Lord High
Treasurer after 1572. A leader of the Protestant faction in
England, and a known supporter of fiery Scottish preachers
like John Knox.
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (1532-1588). A
nobleman, Elizabeth’s childhood friend and personal favorite-often considered her lover. He was a suggested husband for
Mary Stuart, but refused to consider the proposal. He
remained sympathetic to Mary’s plight, but finally turned
against her and argued for her execution. Intelligent,
educated dashing, an excellent tennis player and skilled in
arms, he was known as the master courtier. He and Burleigh
spent fortunes in their estate gardens, competing for
Elizabeth’s attention and favor.
George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury
(1522-1590). A nobleman and loyal advisor
to Queen Elizabeth, who entrusted him with
Mary Stuart’s keeping in 1569.
Sir Amias Paulet (1532-1588). A diplomat and strong
Puritan, known for his harsh character. He was assigned
to keep Mary Stuart at Fotheringhay. He tore down
Mary’s regalia, opened her letters, and subjected her to
random searches, suspecting everyone and everything.
William Davison (1541-1608). Secretary to Queen Elizabeth, and entrusted with Mary’s execution
warrant. She later charged him with disobedience for having the warrant carried out. He was
imprisoned, fined, and never re-employed by the Queen
Mortimer. The one major character in Schiller’s play who is not historical. He is compounded in
part from the many Catholic young men, like the conspirator Thomas Babington, who risked their
lives in efforts to rescue Mary and assassinate the Protestant Queen Elizabeth.