I, Elizabeth – Rebecca Vaughan
Review by Emily.
Not so Terrible Tudors (I, Elizabeth)
For someone, whose prior knowledge of Elizabeth I stretched as far as Horrible Histories’ ‘Terrible Tudors’ and the iconic musical parody, it’s safe to say I wasn’t an Elizabeth enthusiast. To me she was just a 16th century monarch single-minded, rude and pompous. I’d like to think that’s not something I can associate within 21st century life. However, after watching Rebecca Vaughan’s emotive monologue combining adaptions of Elizabeth’s letters and speeches, the number of modern parallels forced me to rethink my dismissive view of her.
Exploring themes of marriage and societal expectations, Vaughan exposed the similarities between an old society we frown upon and today’s way of life. For me, Vaughan’s performance embodied Elizabeth’s humility, responsibility and vulnerability with the cyclical quote ‘a thousand eyes see all I do’. Today, to me, this represents the relentless infiltration of social media and constant scrutiny of ourselves and others. Vaughan concludes with ‘if I had a thousand tongues not one’. She showed how the overwhelming expectations forced her to become outspoken and paranoid. Vaughan portrayed this brilliantly with the two most prominent emotions being anger and sorrow.
The gothic architecture and red lighting at St Mary’s set the scene to capture the feeling of Elizabeth’s internalized paranoia and anger in addition to the captivating portrayal of emotion by Vaughan.
The most poignant thing about Vaughan’s creation was that it evoked reflection and empathy in my perception of Elizabeth. It dismantled the pretense that she was a cold and ruthless Queen transforming her in my eyes into someone I could empathize and almost relate to at times.
I think back to my 11-year-old self, humming along to Horrible Histories’ parody of Madness and observing the dichotomy between 16th century and 21st century society. I would not have thought that 5 years later, after watching Rebecca Vaughan bring to life Elizabeth’s deepest emotions, I could somewhat associate with a 16th century Queen’s pressures.