This, to steal a line from the late, lamented Oldsmobile advertising, ain't your father's Mary, Queen of Scots.

Adapter and director Mark Jackson has Friedrich Schiller's vintage play "Mary Stuart" into a taut religious and political thriller, now playing at the Shotgun Players' Ashby Stage. While the show crackles with contemporary sensibilities and comparisons to recent government wrangling, it does tell the complex story of the blood rivalry between Mary, Queen of Scots (Stephanie Gularte) and Queen Elizabeth I (Beth Wilmurt).

As the play begins, Mary is held captive, with a death sentence over her head, issued by Elizabeth. Mary, sitting in an office chair most of the time and never leaving the stage, is a prisoner in what appears to be a stark police interrogation room (beautifully created by Nina Ball). Above her are three large television monitors, almost always focused, close up, on her face. Every twitch, every small gesture, every tiny movement by Mary is magnified on the screen and tells a powerful tale of her turmoil.

When not focused on Mary, the TVs are revealing what is going on in the hallways outside the room. At one point the cameras witness a bloody suicide.

Surrounding both women are a crowd of political operatives, some supporting Mary, others Elizabeth and still others walking a tightrope trying to convince the two queens they support them both. The backroom of the palace, it seems, is not so different from the backroom of the White House.

Both women and their men are playing a political power game in the face of assassination threats against Elizabeth, a capital sentence facing Mary and a populace on both the British Isles and in Europe in favor of one or the other -- Mary, the Catholic, aligned with France, and Elizabeth, the Protestant and daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Some even believed Mary had a stronger claim to the British Throne.

It all plays out in bold strokes, flashing lights and masterful video work and incredible direction by Jackson. And the cast is top-notch. Both women inhabit their royal roles completely. Wilmurt shines particularly in a beautifully wrought scene of self doubt, played opposite Dara Yazdani.

The other men, Jesse Caldwell, Scott Coopwood, John Mercer, Peter Ruocco and Ryan Tasker, all present characters that are sly political operatives, each one a bit more slimy than the next. The characters, slippery as they are, occasionally flicker with flashes of conscience, but are mostly scheming either to win favor from the women or see one or the other deposed or dead.