On and Off Broadway

'The Audience'

Reviewed by Elyse Trevers

Posted

Since 1776, Americans have been enamored of royalty, particularly glamorous royalty epitomized by Diana and Kate. The enchantment with titles even extends to the not-as-glamorous Queen Elizabeth, one of the longest reigning monarchs in history. With her trademark hats and handbags, Elizabeth piques our interest. (Do queens carry their handbags around with them in their own homes, even if it’s Buckingham Palace?) The premise of Peter Morgan’s new play The Audience is the weekly meeting that the monarch has with the Prime Minister. So far throughout her reign, Elizabeth has met with 12 PMs ("A dirty dozen,” the character notes wittily.)

For many U.S. theatergoers, the notion of British royalty extends to actors and actresses as well, some of whom have titles. Dame Helen Mirren received a Damehood in 2003. Over the course of her illustrious career, she has played three queens, and in 2006, she won the Academy Award for portraying Elizabeth II in The Queen. In The Audience, Mirren is confident, regal and witty. She’s everything we’ve come to love and respect from her movies.

Directed by Stephen Daldry, The Audience depicts a fictionalized series of scenes of the Queen meeting with prime ministers. The scenes are not in chronological order, but rather in episodic order and, in fact, they jump around a bit. The play begins with John Majors (Dylan Baker) who held office when the family was dealing with some of the rifts between Diana and Charles and then flashes back to Winston Churchill and a very young Elizabeth. The Queen makes it her business to be impartial and the only time something bordering opinion emerges is with Margaret Thatcher (ably portrayed by Judith Ivey.) There's a brief moment of deva vu when Blair justifies going into Iraq with Pres. Bush, which eerily echoes Anthony Eden's rationale for invading the Suez years before. It’s a case of history repeating itself, in this case, almost verbatim.


Unlike the movie The Queen, this Elizabeth is too good with few flaws. She's understanding, extremely witty and consumed with the welfare of her people and the Commonwealth. It’s hard to accept that some of her Prime Ministers would be almost disrespectful to her. (What's going on in the US today with the relationship between Congress and the President notwithstanding, one would imagine that the PMs would be more deferential to her position.) Morgan makes an attempt to create sympathy for Elizabeth living a life circumscribed by her birth and position but isn't terribly successful.

However, that doesn’t matter. In fact, it's exciting that theater royalty, Dame Mirren, is on stage. At the end, the audience rises to applaud but really feels the fleeting impulse to curtsy.