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Another day at Stratford, this time to see Christina, The Girl King, by Michael Marc Bouchard.  Fascinating.  I must read the play (translated from the French (Canadian) by Linda  Gaboriau.  I read the information about Queen Christina of Sweden but I'm having a little difficulty relating what I learned to the spin Bouchard has put on it.  Apart from the historical accuracy (or in-),  I'm also having trouble distinguishing between the writer's and the director's input, and also with the playwright's rule-bending. There are certain rules  - well, maybe guidelines - for playwrights that it pays to observe in order to make things clear to the audience.   Well, Bouchard has two different people addressing the audience, stretching the allowance for narrative speaker (a no-no, in any case, according to Robert McKee) and then the protagonist addresses an invisible person (not the audience, who is un-co-operative.   Not great.

But the play, as I said, is fascinating, because of the subject. Bouchard has packed a lot of different issues into a two and a half hour play, some of them more thorny than others.  I have to read the script and think.  But the production is fine and the costumes splendid.  Stratford continues to be a designer's theatre.  I do wish the actress (Jenny Young) playing Queen Christina were more robust and less petite and adorable-looking.  

Then I went to bed.

After all, tomorrow is another day.