This clumsy translation, dramatising the ties of blood that bound two legendary queens, Elizabeth I of England and Mary Stuart Queen of Scotland, is a far cry from Schiller's majestic play bearing the same title. One suspects that Dacia Maraini's version wouldn't be too much better in Italian, either.

She has uncommonly rich and inspirational material with which to work and Otto Martin's compact, darkly timbered set, spiced with the motifs of Tudor England and slashed by a swirl of blood-red silk, hints tantalisingly at subterfuge, cloak and dagger treachery and illicit romance. But Maraini's text turns out to be disappointingly two-dimensional and linear, relying on two actresses to alternate the roles of queens and servants, as well as taking on a handful of cameo roles.

This allows for little sense of dramatic tension or plot development and, in Caroline Hunt's production for Starship Enterprises, pace and mood are given few chances to gather momentum. Hunt herself plays Elizabeth as a salty-tongued, embittered woman, obsessed with her ageing virginal body and her failure to become a wife and mother. She is completely without dignity and regal bearing, qualities oddly more in evidence in her other role as Mary's faithful servant Kennedy.

Miriam Cooper's almond-eyed, oval face and sweet voice lend considerable pathos and credibility to her portrayal of the vain, sensually charming yet doomed Mary. It is a pity that the tragic story of these two strong women - one condemned to die, the other condemned to order her death, one Catholic, the other Protestant, one holding up her fate to the judgement of Europe, the other relying on English history to justify her actions - should fail to find a stronger resonance . . . and on International Women's Day, too.

Mary Stuart is at the Old Museum Arts Centre until tomorrow. To book phone 08 01232 233332.