Mary Stuart (adapted from Friedrich Schiller's drama by Jean Stock Goldstone and John Reich) is a great 150-year-old German classic which, despite the appeal of its heroine to English-speaking nations, seldom turns up in their theaters. One reason may be the problem of translation; another, the assortment of plays about Mary Stuart—Swinburne's, Drinkwater's, Maxwell Anderson's—that are in English already. Finally, 150-year-old classics have a way of showing their age.
To open the off-Broadway Phoenix Theater's fifth season British Director Tyrone Guthrie has offered a Mary Stuart that stresses, that highlights, that exults in its age. Guthrie's production is high-busted, brass-throated, old-style theater....
