By James Karas
King Charles III,
“a future history play” in the words of its author, is now playing at the CAA
Theatre (formerly Panasonic) in Toronto. I came, I saw it and did not like it.
Why? Liking or not liking a play or a production is a subjective
reaction and theatre reviewers arrogate to themselves the right to express
their views. If a play has been accepted as a great piece of work and a
reviewer disagrees with established assessment s/he should eschew damning the
work. No doubt s/he has superior knowledge and perception, but judicious silence
may be more advisable than pompous display of whatever s/he possesses.
Expressing an opinion that King Lear is
a bad play will not gain you many fans.
Patrick Galligan, David Schurmann, Gray Powell
In that line of thinking, I begin by saying, that I don’t think King
Charles III is a very good play. It is about the present Prince Charles
becoming a king upon the death of his mother. For no better reason than
personal preconception, I expect any play about Charles to be a comedy. He has
been waiting for almost seventy years for his mother to die so he can get her
job. I don’t think he is very bright and he has a tendency to be struck by
foot-in-mouth disease and comment on matters that he should keep his mouth shut
about. His sole accomplishment has been his choice of parents and satire is the
only treatment that should be meted on him.
According to Mike Bartlett, when he becomes king, Charles precipitates a
constitutional crisis by refusing to sign an act of parliament that restricts
freedom of the press. Having started with the prejudice that Charles is
suitable only for satire or broad comedy, I found it hard to accept such a
principled stand by this less-than-well- honed knife in the drawer.
Bartlett has written the play in blank verse and has added the ghost of
Princess Diana, another dummy, but a pretty one. This I suppose is intended to
give the play a Shakespearean dimension, a dimension for which the Greeks had a
word: hubris.
We have a family crisis with Prince Harry dating a commoner and wanting
to become a commoner himself for the sake of love. Harry has the defining
family trait – he is stupid. When you have everything and nothing to do and
there are people fawning on you all your life, brain cells simply do not
develop.
L-R - Jeff Meadows, Shannon Taylor, David Schurmann, Rosemary Dunsmore
(William, Kate, Camilla and Charles)
The constitutional crisis becomes a serious national issue. The Prime
Minister threatens to bypass the King. The King exercises an arcane prerogative by storming into the House of
Commons and dissolving Parliament. That is pretty serious stuff. The nation is
up in arms and the United Kingdom is starting to look like a banana republic
though I am sure no bananas are grown on the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
Whatever the virtues or lack thereof of King Charles III, the
production by Studio 180 did not help it. It is done on a raised platform with
none of the accoutrements of posh royalty in the set. The Canadian actors under
the direction of Joel Greenberg, cannot give us the ambience of events in Buckingham
Palace. We are used to crisp English upper crust accents in that venue and alas
we get sad attempts at it but they fall short of satisfactory.
A few credits. David Schurmann plays a straight-backed, serious and
principled Charles which I could not take seriously. Wade Bogert-O’Brien plays
Prince Harry and Jessica Greenberg is his girlfriend Jess. Gray Powell is the
Prime Minister and Patrick Galligan is the Leader of the Opposition, both are
politicians.
Rosemary Dunsmore plays Camilla and looks like the real one. Prince
William, the Duke of Cambridge and Charles’ replacement is played by Jeff
Meadows and Shannon Taylor is his wife Catherine. The set is by John Thompson.
King Charles III
premiered in 2014 in London and has had a number of productions in the United
States and Canada. It won the 2004 Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best New
Play and the Broadway production was nominated for a number of awards but did
not win any.
As you can see there is no telling for tastes and there is a chance you
will like King Charles III, the play,
and you may even be thrilled by Prince Charles himself. As I said, there is no
telling for taste.
__________________
King Charles III by Mike Bartlett in a production by Studio
180 continues until March 4, 2018 at the CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge St. Toronto , Ontario . www.mirvish.com
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