Theatre review: Mary Stuart

My first theatre trip of 2017 should have been one of my last of 2016, but the performance I was due to see was one of several cancelled due to cast illness - presumably the gastroenteritis that's knocked out half the West End and got me last month as well. But everyone's back on their feet now for the latest of Robert Icke's classic reinventions at the Almeida, Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart. In the battle of wills between the last Tudor monarch and her great rival, Icke sees the women as two sides of the same coin - literally, as two actresses share both roles, with a coin spun at the beginning of the performance to decide who plays who. Tonight Lia Williams called heads and won, so the assembled cast bowed to her as Queen Elizabeth I, who's been ruling for eight years and has restored Protestantism to England - along with a stability the country hasn't known for a long time.

Theatre review: Joan of Arc

If Friedrich Schiller is Germany's answer to Shakespeare, then Joan of Arc must be his Henry V. It even features its own Welshman, and takes place soon after the end of Shakespeare's play, as the French start to take back the land and power lost to the English. It takes an unusual general to reverse their fortunes, though: With the Dauphin (Natasha Rickman) out of cash, and at odds with his half-brother Dunois (Christopher York) about how to take on the enemy, they're open to desperate measures, like the arrival of young country girl Joan (Kate Sawyer,) who claims to be a messenger of divine support for the French cause. Allowed to test her claim, Joan proves a canny military tactician, bringing the traitorous Duke of Burgundy (Christopher Hughes) back to the fold, and defeating the feared English general Talbot (Christopher Tester.)

Theatre review: The Robbers

The Faction conclude their 2014 rep season with their pet playwright, Friedrich Schiller, and a tale of warring siblings. Handsome, charismatic Karl (Tom Radford) has got in with the wrong crowd but begs his father for forgiveness. Crippled, twisted younger brother Franz (Andrew Chevalier) wants the family wealth and titles for himself, so convinces their father to disinherit his brother instead. Believing himself damned by a father's curse, Karl agrees to lead his friends as they go from libertines to all-out gang of vicious robbers who lay waste to whole cities at a time and laugh in the face of the church. But when Karl learns of Franz's advances towards his beloved Amalia (Kate Sawyer,) he returns home for a showdown. Mark Leipacher directs his and Daniel Millar's translation of Schiller's The Robbers.

Theatre review: Fiesco

There's always a number of big theatrical events, often featuring star names, on the horizon in London to look forward to. Those of us with less West End-centric tastes though can get equally excited about the return of lesser-known artists whose work we've enjoyed in the past. If you're a listener to the podcast I often contribute to, you might have heard me plug as one of my fringe tips for 2013 the latest repertory season from The Faction, the classics company with a minimalist, highly physical aesthetic, and a particular fondness for Friedrich Schiller. And it's to the German playwright they turn again for the first of three new productions, and their continuing ambition to write and stage new translations of his complete works. Which this year leads to a surprising claim, given that Schiller isn't entirely obscure: That this is the UK premiere of Fiesco, not seen in English since it was written in 1783.

Theatre review: Mary Stuart

The main reason I've added the New Diorama to the list of theatres I keep an eye on is that the excellent Faction theatre company seem to have made it their base of operations. I skipped their first repertory season earlier in the year because I didn't want to add another venue to my collection when I have too many to keep up with already. But a second season has now been added for 2013, so it seemed silly to keep avoiding a company whose work I've always enjoyed in the past. In the meantime one of the productions from the first rep season has returned on its own prior to a small tour: The Faction have always expressed a particular interest in staging the works of Friedrich Schiller, and director Mark Leipacher has now turned to Mary Stuart, which he and Daniel Millar have written a new translation for. The story is the classic clash between two powerful women: Queen Elizabeth I, wanting to cement her power in the face of Catholic plots; and the figurehead for those rebels, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, currently imprisoned.