Synopsis

While a heavy snowfall blankets London, King Edward lies on his deathbed, and his younger brother, the monstrous Richard, is plotting to assassinate all who stand between him and the throne. As the balance of power shifts, the palace women—“Queens” of the royal families of York, Lancaster, and Plantagenet—fight tooth, nail and tongue to gain the prospective monarch’s favour: the anguished Queen Elizabeth; the elderly Duchess of York, mother of Edward and Richard; the dethroned queen, Margaret of Anjou; the ambitious and grasping Warwick sisters, Anne and Isabella . . . all, that is, except the mute and mysterious Anne Dexter. The play traces the shifting passions and ambitions of six women drawn from Shakespeare’s Richard III and the recorded lineage of the English monarchy, governed by centuries of protocol, and bound to the great cosmic hierarchy of kings. Chaurette’s queens yearn to carve out a place in history; and so they talk, they talk… in sumptuous yet superficial words that disguise the brutality of the world while paradoxically revealing it all the more clearly. On the ritualized ground between their private and public lives, we witness tragic collisions, cruel exchanges, and occasional unexpected flashes of offbeat humour.