'King Charles III' and 'First Daughter Suite'

This season we have two striking new plays, one British, one American, that take us behind closed doors of the House of Windsor and the White House with surprising boldness and imagination.

Fathers and sons

King Charles III, Mike Bartlett’s brilliant play now on Broadway, may be Shakespearean in style, but it’s set in the future. Elizabeth II has died, and her son Charles, the Prince of Wales, is about to ascend to the throne. The story takes us through the days leading up to his coronation, during which Charles finds himself embroiled in a political crisis that turns personal. He takes a courageous stand not to sign a bill that would jeopardize the privacy of the individual, in defiance of an angry parliament.

However, Charles (played by Tim Pigott-Smith, of The Jewel in the Crown fame) has trouble holding his ground. He has to deal with two rebellious sons: Prince Harry, whose profligate lifestyle causes the family upset, and Prince William, who conspires behind the scenes with the prime minister against his own father. The political becomes personal, as William and his Lady Macbeth-like Kate undermine Charles’s future and cause his ultimate, Hamlet-like downfall.

Bartlett’s play is innovative in both form and content. Written in eloquent, Shakespearean-style blank verse and employing a company of 13, the action unfolds on an empty stage with the power of a classical tragedy. In the end, it’s about “the bond cracked ‘twixt son and father,” as Gloucester says in King Lear. The tragedy is both a personal and political one.

Mothers and daughters

Similarly, author/composer Michael John LaChiusa surprises us with a look at our own “royals,” the mothers and daughters of presidential families. First Daughters Suite, his bold new musical now playing at the Public Theater, offers four intimate White House family scenes during various administrations. The excitement of this original composition (featuring a talented ensemble of eight actresses) lies in the daring of LaChiusa’s imagination in dramatizing what may have gone on behind closed White House doors during times of political crisis.

In one scene, for example, he imagines the Ford and Carter women in a dream sequence on the deck of a ship, sailing around during the Iranian hostage crisis. Betty Ford is drunk and dancing, and daughters Susan Ford and Amy Carter are fighting over who should live in the White House, while Rosalynn Carter sits by silently reading a book. In another, a steely Nancy Reagan is forced to drug her destructive daughter Patti to prevent her from causing a scene during the Iran/Contra crisis. In a third, a grieving Barbara Bush must give up the ghost of her dead daughter Robin in order to move on and support her son George during his re-election.

No room for privacy

We live in an era when our leaders are scrutinized with unforgiving intensity. Joe Biden cannot grieve in privacy over the loss of his son. Every square inch of Hillary Clinton’s personal life is being examined, as she pursues her intention to move back into a House where her husband had disgraced her with his indiscretions.

Why do the personal lives of our leaders fascinate us so? Perhaps because they’re flawed, as we are. In an age that has coined the term ”dysfunctional,” we take comfort in knowing that we’re not the only ones with family problems and that our leaders are not beyond being human.

At the same time, there’s a paradox. The power of tragedy, wrote Arthur Miller, lies in our inherent belief in the “perfectibility of man.” Whatever comfort we may take in knowing we’re not alone with our flaws, we always look to our leaders with the naïve expectation that they might be better than we are.

For Carol Rocamora’s review of the London production of King Charles III, click here.