Maria Stuart, described as Schiller's most perfect play, is a finely balanced, inventive account of the last day of the captive Queen of Scotland, caught up in a great contest for the throne of England after the death of Henry VIII and over the question of England's religious confession. Hope for and doubt about Mary's deliverance grow in the first two acts, given to the Scottish and the English queen respectively, reach crisis at the center of the play, where the two queens meet in a famous scene in a castle park, and die away in acts four and five, as the action advances to its inevitable end. The play is at once classical tragedy of great fineness, costume drama of the highest order--a spectacle on the stage--and one of the great moments in the long tradition of classical rhetoric, as Elizabeth's ministers argue for and against execution of a royal prisoner. Flora Kimmich's new translation carefully preserves the spirit of the original: the pathos and passion of Mary in captivity, the high seriousness of Elizabeth's ministers in council, and the robust comedy of that queen's untidy private life. Notes to the text identify the many historical figures who appear in the text, describe the political setting of the action, and draw attention to the structure of the play. Roger Paulin's introduction discusses the many threads of the conflict in Maria Stuart and enriches our understanding of this much-loved, much-produced play. Maria Stuart is the last of a series of five new translations of Schiller's major plays, accompanied by notes to the text and an authoritative introduction.

One of European theatre's major plays, Schiller's masterpiece hinges on a brilliantly imagined meeting between Mary, Queen of Scots - focus of simmering Catholic dissent and her cousin Elizabeth, Queen of England, who has imprisoned her. Isolated by their duplicitous male courtiers, the women collide headlong, each wrestling with the rank, ambition and destiny their births have bestowed, against a thrilling background of intrigue, plot and counter-plot. David Harrower's version of Mary Stuart premiered at the Citizen's Theatre, Glasgow, in October 2006.

Mary Stuart is a verse play by Friedrich Schiller that depicts the last days of Mary, Queen of Scots. The play consists of five acts, each divided into several scenes. The play had its première in Weimar, Germany on 14 June 1800. The play formed the basis for Donizetti's opera Maria Stuarda (1835).