The curtain rises to a still Isabelle Huppert as Mary, Queen of Scots, in silhouette at the back of the stage – swan-like – a simultaneously elegant and jarring beginning to an exhilarating 90 minutes of theatre. I find myself reviewing a review, as Mary, in her final days of incarceration at Fotheringhay Castle in Scotland at the hands of her cousin Elizabeth I, looks back at her life from beginning to its pending end.

Isabelle Huppert in Mary Said What She Said. Photo © Lucie Jansch

The show is a three-part monologue in French, which appears strange at first glance. However, when Mary reveals a nostalgic longing for her fleetingly happy childhood in France, coupled with her contempt for Scotland and England despite being in line to rule both, Darryl Pinckney’s French text becomes the seam for Mary’s tempestuous, complex reflection on her tragic fate.

In her rage at the “painted virgin” who lets men into her bedroom through the back door at night, and the men who have shaped her unfortunate destiny, Mary assumes the roles into which she was cast by her...