[Vivat! Vivat Regina!] sets out to demonstrate Bolt's reasonable contention that Queen Elizabeth I gradually abandoned vivaciousness to become a marvelously skillful head of state, while her rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, turned into a richly human woman as she lost her political battle….

The character transformation works better for Elizabeth than for Mary. Although the "Virgin Queen" is predisposed toward coldness by her unhappy childhood with no mother and a father who disowned her, in her early scenes with Robert Dudley we nevertheless feel that she might have bloomed more fully if that romance had not been blighted by his fickleness and her royal obligations….

Mary, on the other hand, appears a carnal woman from the start, and the episodes of the play prove this point repeatedly…. It is a defect of the play that it remains unclear as to whether a less amorous Mary might not...