Two powerful women, beloved by their people-one sits on the throne; the other is locked in a cell. Kate Mulvany's smart and witty adaptation of Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart is a tale of two queens at war. In the legendary rivalry between Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart, great forces are at play, with nations at stake and citizens ready to fight for the just cause. On the one hand there is principle and ideology; on the other, jealousy and pride. But there is also love. For who else could understand what torments a queen better than another queen? Mulvany turns her feminist lens on this brutal and moving story of cousins pitted against each other by politics and circumstance, trapped on different sides of history's coin. Mary Stuart, in a new adaptation by Kate Mulvany ... offers a different kind of catharsis: the act of reclaiming women's stories with empathy, insight and, crucially, by allowing women of the past to finally have a voice.- Time Out Sydney