| My review of KING CHARLES III -- 2015 Olivier Award’s Best New Play now on Broadway | |
| Posted by: | jesse21 02:48 pm EST 11/01/15 |
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| - King Charles III, the award-winning London import now smashingly ensconced at The Music Box where it opens tonight, is the ultimate dysfunctional family play. It is also a compelling history play, never mind that it is fictitiously set some years hence. And it is a cautionary tale about curtailed freedoms in a democracy and the danger of popularity over substance. At stake is nothing less than who gets to wear the British crown. I read a brief description of this play when it was first announced by London’s Almeida Theatre (later moved to the West End) as to the speculative premise of what happens after Queen Elizabeth II dies and Prince Charles finally assumes the throne in his seventies. I immediately beamed with the thought: “Now that’s something interesting that sounds thoroughly original.” Upon finally catching it the other night, I was dazzled beyond expectations by 34-year-old playwright Mike Bartlett’s (his Bull was at 59E59 Theaters in 2013) execution of his cheeky notion. First, because he modeled King Charles III after Shakespeare’s history plays (Richard II and Henry V particularly) with all the behind-the-throne backstabbing. He also flavors it with a dash of tragedies like King Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth. And he pens his dialogue in blank verse, both as homage to and parody of the Bard. Secondly, he seizes on a political issue that pertains to anyone living in a democracy, not plot points only of interest to Brits and Anglophiles. The crisis is that Charles (Tim Pigott-Smith) at the outset of his reign refuses to place his signature on the first Parliamentary bill that comes his way, something a monarch has not done since 1708. This is legislation protecting privacy that limits freedom of the press. Even though Charles had been all but tarred and feathered by the press, especially over his two marriages to Diana and Camilla, he views these limitations on what can be published as anathema to the very foundation of Britain. Think of the bill as similar to watering down our own First Amendment rights here in the U.S. Charles’s actions generate a conflict over checks and balances in government that are relatable (not comparable) to current friction between the White House and Congress which makes King Charles III even more interesting to an American audience.. (By the way, the Playbill has an informative two-page spread entitled “The Crown in Parliament” which explains the British legislature.) I won’t divulge the plot that follows but the major characters besides Charles are his oldest son and heir to the throne, William (Oliver Chris), along with his manipulative feminist wife Kate (a particularly fine Lydia Wilson); younger son Harry (a terrifically human and sympathetic Richard Goulding) and his commoner girlfriend (Tafline Steen); a Labour prime minister (Adam James) with Tony Blair shadings; and the duplicitous Tory opposition leader (Anthony Calf) Camilla (Margot Leicester) and Princess Di (Sally Scott), haunting the premises as a ghost, have smaller roles. Tim Pigott-Smith is probably best known to American audiences as the police superintendent, Ronald Merrick, in The Jewell in the Crown, the popular miniseries seen on PBS in the 1980s. His performance here as Charles is nothing less than towering, while simultaneously introspective. He conveys the torment of an idealist wrestling with his conscience and a public figure who prefers a private life. When family turns against him, as well as the public’s intolerance for a monarch not universally loved like his mother, his Charles and the play itself become effectively Lear-like as a modern day tragedy. The twelve actors in the all-British company are excellent. They are cast and made-up to replicate famous figures somewhat but not exactly. Yet Oliver Chris (in One Man, Two Guvnors at the same theater in 2012) is so eerily like Prince William in manner that at times I fooled myself into thinking I was watching the genuine article. Around a unit stage setting by Tom Scutt that suggests a room in a castle that has housed centuries of monarchy with a royal dais as its centerpiece and main playing area, the imaginative and totally-in-control director Rupert Gould (artistic director of the Almeida; on Broadway, the Patrick Stewart-led Macbeth) doesn’t go in for directorial gimmickry here, but he creates a convincing world of pomp and pageantry throughout by cleverly positioning the movement of the cast (clad mostly in black and white). He is ably assisted by some original music, composed by Jocelyn Pook, and performed live from one of the theater’s boxes by Maria Jeffers and Christa Robinson. King Charles III also has a sense of humor throughout, an example of which is playing Lorde's pop hit “Royals” (listen here) over the loudspeakers as the audience exits. I certainly got even more for my time and money than I anticipated. The entertaining and stimulating King Charles III is a highlight of the season on and off Broadway so far. I won’t be the least bit surprised if I don’t see a better new play between now and May. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ - Jesse SIDEBAR: KING CHARLES III opens Sunday, November 1, 2015, at The Music Box, 239 West 45th Street, New York City. Seen at a preview on 10/27. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission. Act I: 1 hour, 17 minutes. Act II: 1 hour. Tickets currently on sale through January 31, 2016. Link to website. - | |
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