Uneasy Lies the Head: The future King Charles III

Saw and totally enjoyed the completely engaging and provocative drama King Charles III: A Future History Play (by Mike Bartlett, director Rupert Goold), which brings us to an indeterminate time in the future, opening with a spooky vision of Queen Elizabeth's funeral and then segueing into the first weeks of the reign of KCIII. The drama entails Charles's attempts to assert regal authority: In his first meeting with the PM, who expects KCIII to routinely sign every piece of legislation, as his mother had done, Charles refuses to sign a bill and cannot support - which leads to a crisis of governments: the PM tries to push through Parliament a bill that would make bills into law w/out the King's assent. Although this dispute may sound a little abstract or abstruse, the many angles are quite fascinating, even to an American audience: Our sympathies would on the surface be w/ elected officials rather than inherited monarchy ("all [people] are created ="), but Charles is trying to block a bill that would all much greater press censorship - the UK has no constitution and certainly no bill of rights, so in this way we are on Charles's side - except that the rights he's protecting are pretty much the rights of thugs like Murdoch to print sensational and sometimes libelous material, so maybe he's int he wrong? In any event, the controversy becomes national, putting the whole royal household into jeopardy. What's really cool about this "future history" play is that, in homage to Shakespeare, it's in somewhat loose blank verse, with occasional rhymed couplets at the conclusion of key scenes (I hope someday to read the script to see how Bartlett managed contemporary speech in blank verse). Though there are no direct allusions to or quotations from Sh, at least none I picked up, there are many evocations of Shakesparean themes, most notably the woman driving the man to seize power, the ungrateful offspring, the monarch mixing with the "commoners" to see what life outside of the royal bubble (thinking of M4M here), the revival of the soliloquy (so rarely used in contemp drama), the hapless monarch (RII), the scheming monarch (RIII), and the dissolute son (HIV) - and probably more. Tim Pigott-Smith is terrific in the lead and the supporting cast is great, with a special nod to my good friend Margot Leicester who kills as Camilla. Though there are many laugh lines, and play is not a comedy, as some have asked me - it's a real drama, and KCIII is a flawed hero of near tragic proportions. I can't say this play is of Shakespearen proportions - what would be? - but it draws on all that's best of British theater past and present: great acting, subtle and imaginative stage direction, smart visuals, stirring but never distracting music, great show.