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A few elegant hours with the ultimate classy lady
Peter Morgan's "The Audience' in HD-Live (2nd review)
Steve Cohen
For 60 years Elizabeth II has met each of her 12 prime ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace. Both parties honor an unspoken agreement never to repeat what is said, not even to their spouses. And there's no evidence that anyone has broken this agreement.
From Churchill to Cameron, each prime minister has used these private conversations as a sounding board and sometimes as a confessional. With The Audience, the British playwright Peter Morgan imagines what occurred during these meetings between the Downing Street incumbents and their queen, basing his delicious speculations on historical records about what was happening at the times.
No knowledge of British politics is required to watch The Audience. Various PMs fill us in on issues like the Suez debacle of 1956 and sanctions against South Africa during apartheid. Yet what's most interesting are the intimate personal revelations about each of the prime ministers, and the queen's sympathetic reactions, even when she disagrees with a minister's policies.
"'Heads don't turn'
In contrast to Morgan's earlier The Queen, which described the monarch's give-and-take with Tony Blair on the subject of Diana, this play covers a much broader range of people and issues, and it does so with warmth and humor. John Major complains that he's not a recognized public figure: "When I walk into a room, heads don't turn."
"How nice that would be," exclaims the queen, more to herself than to him.
Helen Mirren plays Queen Elizabeth II between the ages of 25 and 87 in non-chronological order, aided by swift costume and hairstyle changes. She's regal yet refreshingly human and even funny. Eight of her prime ministers have scenes with her; the most bristling confrontations are those with Churchill and Thatcher. Near the end, Elizabeth reveals her personal favorite among all of them, and it's a surprising choice.
Next up: Branagh
The play discloses the clinical depression of one prime minister, the drug-taking of another, and the onset of Alzheimer's in another, causing him to resign, although he never told his wife the diagnosis— only the queen. (By contrast, Thatcher didn't show symptoms of dementia until later in her life.)
The tone is civilized, the acting classy, the sets elegant. The Audience provides an engrossing two and a half hours of intelligent theater. The National Theatre's production was taped live in June and is being shown in cinemas worldwide. Other coming telecasts by this prestigious theater include a Macbeth directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh and an Othello set within a U.S. army unit and directed by Nicholas Hytner.♦
To read Carol Rocamora's review of the London production, click here.
From Churchill to Cameron, each prime minister has used these private conversations as a sounding board and sometimes as a confessional. With The Audience, the British playwright Peter Morgan imagines what occurred during these meetings between the Downing Street incumbents and their queen, basing his delicious speculations on historical records about what was happening at the times.
No knowledge of British politics is required to watch The Audience. Various PMs fill us in on issues like the Suez debacle of 1956 and sanctions against South Africa during apartheid. Yet what's most interesting are the intimate personal revelations about each of the prime ministers, and the queen's sympathetic reactions, even when she disagrees with a minister's policies.
"'Heads don't turn'
In contrast to Morgan's earlier The Queen, which described the monarch's give-and-take with Tony Blair on the subject of Diana, this play covers a much broader range of people and issues, and it does so with warmth and humor. John Major complains that he's not a recognized public figure: "When I walk into a room, heads don't turn."
"How nice that would be," exclaims the queen, more to herself than to him.
Helen Mirren plays Queen Elizabeth II between the ages of 25 and 87 in non-chronological order, aided by swift costume and hairstyle changes. She's regal yet refreshingly human and even funny. Eight of her prime ministers have scenes with her; the most bristling confrontations are those with Churchill and Thatcher. Near the end, Elizabeth reveals her personal favorite among all of them, and it's a surprising choice.
Next up: Branagh
The play discloses the clinical depression of one prime minister, the drug-taking of another, and the onset of Alzheimer's in another, causing him to resign, although he never told his wife the diagnosis— only the queen. (By contrast, Thatcher didn't show symptoms of dementia until later in her life.)
The tone is civilized, the acting classy, the sets elegant. The Audience provides an engrossing two and a half hours of intelligent theater. The National Theatre's production was taped live in June and is being shown in cinemas worldwide. Other coming telecasts by this prestigious theater include a Macbeth directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh and an Othello set within a U.S. army unit and directed by Nicholas Hytner.♦
To read Carol Rocamora's review of the London production, click here.
What, When, Where
The Audience. By Peter Morgan; Stephen Daldry directed. National Theatre of London production in HD-Live, July 6 and 21, 2013 at Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, Pa. (610) 527-9898 or www.brynmawrfilm.org or ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk.
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