More than 200 years after we threw off the yoke, the British Royals are back in power in America — if only on Broadway. This season, the theater-going public has the opportunity to pay homage to Henry VIII, Elizabeth II, and Charles III.
Charles III? If you know your history, you know that is a future title. And indeed, in “Charles III” — Mike Bartlett’s fanciful tale that is a current smash hit in London — Prince Charles finally ascends the throne after the death of his mother and gets enmeshed in all sorts of palace and parliamentary intrigue. As reported in the New York Post, the play will transfer this Spring to Broadway with Tim Pigott-Smith reprising his acclaimed performance in the title role. It’s not clear now whether other roles will be re-cast, including those of Camilla Parker Bowles, Princes Harry and William and, of course, Kate Middleton, whose character was described by some of the London critics as “poisonously ambitious.” Written in iambic pentameter in the tradition of Shakespeare, the play also features a ghost — that of Diana, no doubt laced with vengeance on the House of Windsor. Bartlett — whose last play in New York, “Cock,” was about contemporary sexual mores — has said that he wrote the drama, directed by Rupert Goold, as much for theater snobs as for the readers of gossip rags. “Everybody is welcome,” he said.
Princess Diana is also a ghost of sorts in Peter Morgan’s “The Audience,” which will arrive stateside, beginning performances on Broadway on February 17 and opening officially on March 8 at the Schoenfeld Theatre. The episodic drama, in which Queen Elizabeth II alternatively holds a weekly meeting with eight of her twelve Prime Ministers, stars Helen Mirren, who won an Olivier for her commanding performance. (Her Oscar-winning turn in Morgan’s “The Queen” was good training in the royal manner.) Mirren will be a strong contender to finally add a Tony Award to her mantle, having been nominated twice before: in 1994 for “A Month in the Country” and in 2001 for “Dance of Death.” Directed by Stephen Daldrey, the play is an inside peek at Her Majesty’s respective relationships with Britain’s leaders over the past sixty years of her reign. In the words of Walter Bagehot, a 19th-Century journalist, the Queen is there “to be consulted, to advise, and to warn” her ministers. Apart from that she is above politics. Or at least should be.
That makes the Queen’s encounter with Maggie Thatcher one of the most highly amusing scenes in the play. The Iron Lady is furious over leaks, apparently coming from Buckingham Palace, that are highly critical of her tough policies, especially toward the country’s indigent. But the emotional core of the play has to do with Princess Diana in an audience with John Major. The Prime Minister informs the Queen that her son’s disastrous marriage is beyond repair and that Diana has taken the gloves off in her criticism of the House of Windsor. Since there is no written record of the Queen’s weekly tête-à-têtes with her ministers, it is left to Morgan to imagine them. But what comes blazingly through is the utter loneliness and isolation of the monarch.
That may well be true of Henry VIII’s predicament in “Wolf Hall Parts 1& 2,” the Royal Shakespeare Company’s adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s best selling books, which has been a five-star, hot-ticket hit since it opened first in Stratford and then, last Spring, in London. Mike Poulton has adapted the works, which focus on Thomas Cromwell’s tempestuous relationship with the mercurial king. Ben Miles will re-create his role as Cromwell as will Lydia Leonard, as Anne Boleyn, and Nathaniel Parker as Henry VIII. The two-part plays — nearly six hours in total — will be a surfeit of theater for buffs, with a cast of more than twenty playing seventy-some roles. Directing the traffic is Jeremy Herren, who makes his debut with this pair of epic, prize-winning dramas. The Broadway production begins performances at the Winter Garden on March 20 with an opening on April 9. This will be an event with a capital “E.”
