The play opens with the Scottish queen’s imprisonment. She spends her last days with her companion Jane Kennedy (played by Katelijne Damen), while Mortimer (a fanatical romantic knight, played by Matteo Simoni) and Leicester (Elizabeth’s favourite confidant, played by Hans Kesting) hatch a rescue plan.
Ivo van Hove has made a play about our own time, with powerful women who rule the world and come into conflict with themselves and their place in history.
