QUEENS

A new text by Rob de Graaf about two queens and a maidservant. With costumes by Bas Kosters.

En ma fin est mon commencement

A historical falsification of the meeting between Elizabeth I and Maria Stuart. Both claim the English throne. Elizabeth I has seized power and Maria Stuart awaits her death sentence. Distrust, religious discord and unequal positions of power dominate their relation. Pragmatism versus romanticism.

Décolleté
Décolleté comes from decollo,
decollo means: I bare my neck.
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots,
climbed the scaffold in appropriate dress,
her gown with plunging neckline
was as red as a haematoma.

Simultaneously
before the window in a distant room
stood Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England
dressed in a white gown
triumphantly buttoned up to the neck
and embellished with starched frills.

In chorus they thought:
‘Lord, have pity on me.’
‘Truth is on my side.’
‘Life is perseverance.’
‘In certain circumstances the owl is the daughter of the baker.’
‘This will never pass.’
‘What am I doing in this place, there’s nothing here anyway.’

Dressed differently – we can be sure of that.
The detail
is impassive

Wislawa Szymborska