Skip to main content

The Queen and the Rebels

1966
The development of our historic pages is an ongoing project. New information was last added to this page on 03 April 2026

About The Queen and the Rebels

This page is under construction. If you have any information related to this production, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Regarded in Italy as one of their greatest 20th-century playwrights, Betti is not well known internationally, although this play did become popular. It is one of his few plays on a political theme, although its main interest is in the nature of identity, which everybody can create for themselves.

Rebel forces searching for Queen Elisabetta, who is trying to escape to safety, have stopped a bus, forcing the passengers to disembark. The military interpreter who interrogates them recognizes the prostitute Argia as his former mistress but now wants nothing to do with her. Argia realizes that a peasant woman is the Queen and denounces her to the rebel chief Commissar Amos.

When the Queen tells Argia of the ordeals she has endured, Argia takes pity on her and helps her to escape and is then suspected by Amos of being the Queen herself. She explains that her superior manner is her response to a life of humiliation. The summoned interpreter refuses to recognize her, and the peasant woman, the real Queen, commits suicide.

With no one to identify her, Argia is condemned to death. Amos, threatening her with torture, offers her her life in exchange for an admission of guilt and a list of her accomplices. However, Argia has grown fully into the role of the Queen and haughtily refuses to contemplate any deals. Only when the Queen's young son is brought and threatened, does she relent, but can no longer remember the names that the Queen gave her. She goes out serenely to meet her death.

With thanks to Oxford Reference https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810105702885

Feb 1966

  • Genre: Drama
  • Playwright: Ugo Betti
  • Director: Bill Reynolds

Cast

Kira Mather

Argia

Maureen Christie

Elizabetta

Ronald Boon

Amos

Austin Dowling

Porter

Warwick Millar

Maupa

Frank Ritchie

Biante

Roy Thomson

Raim

Don Fraser

Engineer

Ian Barrett

Travellers, Peasants, Soldiers

Maria Bacsak

Travellers, Peasants, Soldiers

Stephen Stickland

Travellers, Peasants, Soldiers

Elsie Gunn

Travellers, Peasants, Soldiers

Crew

  • Director
    Bill Reynolds
  • Stage Manager
    Maria Bacsak, Stephen Stickland
  • Assistant Stage Manager
    Ian Barrett
  • Sound
    Albert Dulfer, Mary MacLeod
  • Lighting
    Geoff. Simmonds
  • Set Design
    Maureen Boon
  • Photography
    Basil Dawson
  • Set Construction
    John Hoggewog
  • Execution

    Maureen Boon

  • Technical advisor

    Maria Bacsak

Reviews

From BNT Newsletter:

Bill has collected together an outstanding cast and the public and members are assured of a first-class production. This work will be especially valuable to senior students of secondary schools.
Prices will be in the new currency:

  • Adults 80 cents or 8 shillings with a booking fee of 5 cents.
  • Students and old-age pensioners concession 45 cents
  • Members on Monday and Tuesday 60 cents

Because of the large cast complimentary tickets have been abolished and members of productions will bow be given one ticket at half rate.

References