Reviews 2017
Reviews 2017
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by Peter Morgan, directed by Christopher Newton,
David Mirvish, Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto
January 19-February 26, 2017
Elizabeth: “Same faces, same ideas, different ties”
Peter Morgan is well known as the screenwriter for the 2006 British film The Queen and for the current Netflix series The Crown, both of which have Queen Elizabeth II as their central character. In between in 2013 he wrote the play The Audience, also about the Queen, that won an Olivier Award and a Tony for Best Actress for Helen Mirren. As a play The Audience is best viewed simply as a showcase for the actor who plays Queen Elizabeth, since otherwise it has no plot, no character development and no conflict to engage an audience emotionally or intellectually.
The Audience is based on the fact that Queen Elizabeth II, following the practice of her father George VI, holds weekly audiences with the prime minister of the day who as a courtesy informs her of the events that transpired during the past week and the their expectations for what might occur in the next. As Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, the Queen has had a unique perspective on history in having met weekly with all 13 prime ministers from Winston Churchill after her accession in 1952 to the present day.
There are two main problems in trying to turn these audiences into a play. The first is that they are merely a series a episodes and have no dramatic arc. The second is that the audiences are completely private and unrecorded so that whatever was discussed during them is pure speculation. Morgan can thus give the play the trappings of history and the audiences references to events of the time, but otherwise the show is nothing but historical fiction presented in the form of one-on-one vignettes between the Queen and a prime minister.
To guide us through the play, Morgan gives us the character of an unageing Equerry (Anthony Bekenn), who remains in service as long as HMQ and serves as narrator and lecturer to set the time of each audience. This device is quaint and pedantic but necessary because Morgan has decided not to present the Queen’s audiences in chronological order. The first prime minister to appear is John Major (1990-97) after whom we shift to Churchill, the Queen’s first prime minister, in his final term (1951-55). Usually non-chronological order in a play is used to highlight similarities and differences in theme or subject matter. Here Morgan seems to use it mostly to save the most interesting encounters for the second act. It also allows him to begin and end the play with an aged Queen Elizabeth and to finish Act 1 with her coronation as if stirring up pomp and nostalgia will somehow impel us to see the rest of the play.
The other imagined character besides the Equerry is Young Elizabeth (Naomi Cronk) who still hopes her parents will have a boy so she will not have to be queen. Conversations between the Queen and her younger self could be interesting and reveal something about the difference between expectations and reality, but Morgan has these conversations appear only sporadically and none of them lead to any special insight about the Queen.
Apparently in Morgan’s view not all prime ministers are created equal because he allows Harold Wilson (1964-66 and 1974-76) three audiences and John Major two. The rest of the actors playing prime ministers have only one scene to make an impression, and prime ministers Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home and Edward Heath are omitted entirely. James Callaghan had been in the original play but was written out for the 2015 revival when Morgan replaced him with David Cameron. Theresa May, who became prime minister only last year, understandably is also absent.
It is not surprising then that of the eight prime ministers Morgan includes, the two with multiple appearances make greater impact. As Wilson, Nigel Bennett gives a warm portrait of a humble man of the people thrust into an extraordinary position. Evan Buliung’s John Major* is somewhat similar except that he becomes more of a comic figure in being so embarrassed about his lowly origins when faced with Her Majesty.
John B. Lowe does a passable imitation of Winston Churchill, who has to teach the young queen how an audience is supposed to work. From a North American perspective Morgan spends far more time on Gordon Brown (Benedict Campbell) whom we don’t know and who turns out not to be all that interesting versus Tony Blair (Kevin Klassen), whom we do know and who hardly is given a chance to register. Ben Carlson’s David Cameron arrives and departs without making an impression, his main purpose being to show chagrin when the Queen falls asleep during the audience.
Of those with a single appearance Paul Essiembre as Anthony Eden and Kate Hennig as Margaret Thatcher make the most impact. The simple reason for this is that only in these two cases does anything resembling dramatic conflict arise between the PM and HMQ. With Eden, Morgan imagines a clever cat-and-mouse game where the Queen catches him out in a lie about how Britain helped manufacture the Suez Crisis. This gives Essiembre the chance to show that a Machiavel lurks beneath Eden’s handsome exterior.
With Thatcher, Morgan chooses the moment when the PM in high dudgeon confronts the Queen about reports in the newspaper about the negative views the Queen is said to have of her. (The Queen officiallly has no views on politics or politicians.) Here again, game playing ensues with Thatcher daring to play holier-than-thou with her sovereign while the Queen picks out personal reasons why Thatcher does not want there to be sanctions against South Africa.
Other than in these two brief vignettes, drama of any sort is sadly lacking and the play feels more like an educational pageant than either a drama or a comedy. What holds the show together, of course, is the exceptional performance of Fiona Reid as the Queen. With the aid of beautifully managed quick changes of wig and costume, Reid presents the Queen at the age of 26 when she acceded to the crown, in early and late middle age and in her present sturdy old age. Reid expertly changes her voice and ease of movement and gesture to suit each of these ages. Her imitation of the walk of the Queen at her present age is spot on. Since these incarnations of HMQ do not appear in chronological order it is all the more remarkable how Reid shifts from one age to the next so swiftly and with such precision. In dialogue Reid’s comic timing is as impeccable as always.
The show, a co-production between Mirvish and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre is appropriately lavish. Designer Christina Poddubiuk has captured the intimidating atmosphere of the the private audience room at Buckingham Palace and given us an all-too-brief glimpse of a room in draughty Balmoral Castle. Her suits and gowns beautifully reflect the the changes in fashion from the 1950s to the 2010s.
The same year that The Audience appeared so did a play called Handbagged by Moira Buffini which is far superior both as a play and as an analysis of on the Queen’s weekly audiences. The most anticipated PM in The Audience is undoubtedly Margaret Thatcher since it known that the PM and HMQ did not get along. Buffini’s play focusses only on the Queen’s meetings with Thatcher and has the wit to have two actors play each character – one the older, public side, the other the younger, private side. The result is that both women can have debates within themselves and with each other. This series of increasingly fraught interviews plus the escalating differences between what is said and thought make the play more dramatic and absolutely hilarious. I mention this because a revival of Handbagged is planned at the Brockley Jack Studio in south London (UK) for February and March this year.
As for The Audience, given all the material at hand, Morgan has surprising little insight into what the role of the a modern monarchy is besides serving as a source of continuity to contrast with ever-changing politics around it. Fans of Fiona Reid will naturally wish to see her assume so grand a role. Monarchists will no doubt enjoy the feeling of eavesdropping on imagined historical conversations. Everyone else, however, who goes to the theatre to be intellectually challenged or caught up in an engrossing story for two hours, had better join an audience elsewhere.
©Christopher Hoile
*David Jansen takes on the role of John Major starting February 7.
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Kate Hennig as Margaret Thatcher and Fiona Reid; Nigel Bennett as harold Wilson and Fiona Reid; Evan Buliung as John Major and Fiona Reid. ©2017 Cylla von Tiedemann.
For tickets, visit www.mirvish.com.
2017-01-26
The Audience