"Vivat! Vivat Regina!" is the cry that goes up from the assembled Lords at the coronation of a queen.
Robert Bolt uses this as the title for his play which traces the parallel fortunes of two queens who never met,
but who both had a claim on the throne of England: Queen Elizabeth of England and Mary, Queen of Scots.
Unlike other dramatists and film-makers, Bolt does not engineer a fictitious meeting between the two queens,
but intertwines their linked stories in a series of dramatic scenes which trace events
from the death of Mary's first husband, Francis II of France, to her own death at Fotheringay Castle.
Mary began the play dressed in white (the colour of mourning in France at that time) and progressed through grey to black as her
fortunes deteriorated, While Elizabeth went from cream through crimson and pink to elaborate black-and-gold at the end as her
fortunes became more secure.
Mary's court began with pale creams and beiges and peaches, and gradually darkened to grey and black
as her life became more sombre and tragic, while Elizabeth's court was always dressed in darker russets, reds, oranges
and browns.
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The setting for the production was a simple set of arches, panels, rostra and steps which served as all the locations
for the action as it moved from France to England to Scotland and back again to England.
The action between locations sometimes overlapped, so that the two Queens were on
stage together, though in different parts of the country, to emphasise their effect on each other's life.
Lighting was used to create the mood and atmosphere of the two courts, and the surrounding darkness
encroached on events as they moved towards the inevitable tragedy of Mary's execution.
The action of the play covered historical events in the period from 1560 to 1587, and moved
rapidly through the lives of the two women with the minimum of props or scene changing to slow things down.
Mary's execution left Elizabeth alone on her throne with Cecil predicting the defeat of the Spanish
Armada, and proclaiming her eternal glory across the world and down the centuries, to which she responds
with one of Robert Bolt's most telling final lines:
"Very like, Master Cecil; very like ... And then?"
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