The Advisors
There are the defenders of the rules, benders of the rules and craziest of all – those who smash the rules…
A conscious re-construction of the power wrangling by five advisors who pressured Queen Elizabeth to execute Mary Queen of Scots. These advisors find that the power to act is not enough to protect from responsibility. As the blame settles all wield their own power to fight for survival. The explicit rules are not the real rules in this power struggle.
The Advisors is a theatrical work in development, an exploration of hidden power and how it is applied. This is a work where actors are explicitly playing their role, where the historical record is challenged and debated on stage by the actors and their characters concurrently and where the accepted reality is contested. Perspective and personal interest are explicit in this work. It is a work that owes as much to Foucault as to the Tudors.
It is the third play written by Angela Buckingham for The Shift Theatre. It is the on-going creative relationship that allows for this experimentation with form where the allocation of character and the building of dynamics is a process shared with the audience.
