The Audience Broadway Reviews

Mirren, who is becoming something of an expert on playing English royalty, creates an astonishing portrayal, by turns prickly and chummy, regal and regular, insecure and temperamental. She nails the fussiness and strange high-pitched voice but also reveals a frustrated yet resigned monarch quietly pining for a different life. Her quick changes often happen onstage with a new outfit and wig. But perhaps the best stitching is from Morgan, who nimbly fits in exposition and big swaths of history into a coherent and touching portrait of power and majesty. And, with Mirren, even ardent anti-monarchists will clap.

he show also allows the smashing Ms. Mirren to demonstrate her quick-change virtuosity in becoming the queen at different ages, from 1951 to the present, before our very eyes. Those transformations, accomplished with sleights of hand worthy of a master magician, are probably the most entertaining and satisfying aspects of 'The Audience.' It is somehow deeply reassuring to see Ms. Mirren, who turns 70 this year, step back in time as Elizabeth and persuade us that she is whatever age she wants to be. Such time-defying ease feels appropriate to the portrayal of a national ruler perceived as all but immortal.

While most theatergoers are likely to be thrilled by The Audience--or more precisely, by Mirren's performance in The Audience--the concept dictates that we will be seeing pages from a scrapbook, without the dramatic heft that would make it a fine and/or important play. Yes, there is great life for The Audience with Helen Mirren; but the script itself seems to be merely an element of the evening devised to support the star performance, in the same manner as Bob Crowley's sets and costumes and Ivana Primorac's hair and make-up.

Yet in Peter Morgan's play, which is deftly directed by Stephen Daldry and gorgeously designed by Bob Crowley, the subtle transformations are just as compelling as the grand ones, thanks to a consummate performance by the lead actress. This is Mirren's show, and she fully lives up to the expectation created by the buzz from her Olivier Award-winning turn in the West End production of the play in 2013.

To the surprise of exactly no one, Helen Mirren is absolutely terrific as Queen Elizabeth II in 'The Audience'... The physical transformation itself is a lot of fun - how can you not see something that happens right in front of your eyes?! But it pales compared with the way Mirren switches roles from an established, aging ruler to a young woman - not yet crowned - who holds her own against a colossal statesman swinging his weight around. The voice is more girlish, the body language less confident, but the will and character are already there.

Aside from giving the redoubtable Helen Mirren another chance to essay Queen Elizabeth II - a necessarily reclusive character with whom this actress is now so closely allied that the two verge on a coalition, with Mirren doing all the talking - Peter Morgan's 'The Audience' succeeds because it intuits the heavy price a monarch must pay in a constitutional democracy... Daldry, like Morgan, knows how to mix the serious and the flashily theatrical, and thus 'The Audience' is neither dull nor dry... It's a coup de theater of the old school, and watching Mirren seem to peel off years and cares is nothing short of a dazzling experience.

What could have been an acting stunt is instead a rich, deep portrait of a woman who, somehow, is deeply revealed without giving much of her mysterious self away. Mirren, her legs demurely crossed at the ankle and hands folded, expresses layers of depth with just a tilt of her head. Neither a Shakespearean tragedy nor a fairy-tale fantasy, the poignant power of this royal story comes from its extraordinary ordinariness.

Exuding perfect regal frostiness while letting us glimpse the lonely person underneath, Mirren transforms brilliantly (helped by lightning-fast costume changes) from the grandmotherly 69-year-old comforting an insecure John Major (Dylan Baker) to the 25-year-old heir apparent nervously schooled by Winston Churchill (Dakin Matthews). Richard McCabe's sly-boots Labour PM Harold Wilson teases her with obvious affection, and she nimbly defends herself against the fire-breathing Margaret Thatcher (Judith Ivey).

With its nonlinear format, the play was bound to be choppy. Some scenes are more dramatically charged than others, and some characters are more fully developed. There is also no overall conflict or plot. But taken as a whole, 'The Audience' is a fascinating meditation on the historic and present day role of the English monarch. Mirren, whose recent film credits include 'The Hundred-Foot Journey' and 'Hitchcock,' capably handles the challenging role, constantly altering her appearance while conveying the Queen's firm respect for tradition, a sympathetic ear and a witty sense of humor.

Polished visual images aside, we have less a personal sense of Queen Elizabeth than we do so many members of American political 'royalty.' How often do we ever even hear Elizabeth's voice? Through a variety of often workaday anecdotes over two-plus hours, Mirren fills in the blanks, crafting a portrait of a tough and empathetic woman who has survived thanks to personal warmth, good humor and a profound sense of duty.

Morgan's take on the Queen in these fictionalized meetings is daubed in skewed sentiment, but Mirren sells it with impeccable finesse. The playwright finds poignancy in his protagonist's indebtedness to Major for guiding her through the public's growing distance from the monarchy, as well as in her understated but evident affection for Wilson, who starts their association on the defensive but forges a relaxed camaraderie as he shares his self-doubts. McCabe and Baker take full advantage of playing the most fully drawn of the PM characters, giving relatable performances that provide an entertaining counterpoint to Mirren's poise.

Seldom do costumes provide the bulk of a play's drama, but in Peter Morgan's The Audience, starring Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, the greatest surprises and transformations are all in the clothes... Which is all to say that Daldry and his superb designers have worked more magic than has the playwright, if not as much as Mirren herself. In fact, it's difficult to justify calling The Audience a play at all: It is more like a pageant, not merely in the parade-of-costumes sense but in the theatrical sense.

Helen Mirren is so good as Queen Elizabeth II in 'The Audience' that the star of stage, film and TV never needs to worry about a scene being stolen from her. Effortlessly and consistently commanding and composed, Mirren can't be upstaged. She's the jewel in this crown. Still, her portrait never quite ascends to that elusive level of transcendence - or indelibility... Don't blame Dame Helen. The Broadway star vehicle she's driving lacks the high-octane fuel to take her there, even though it's stylishly directed by Stephen Daldry and eloquently designed by Bob Crowley.

It's why Mirren and Morgan have to spend all of act two trying to reestablish some audience empathy with a figurehead who barely registers as a human being despite Mirren's valiant efforts to distract us with several quick-costume changes. If you've seen Mirren in 'The Queen,' also written by Morgan, there's no reason to see 'The Audience.' Princess Diana provides the dramatic conflict that drives the movie, and her presence is sorely missed in the play, where's there's absolutely no dramatic conflict.