There's no need to brush up your Shakespeare to enjoy King Charles III. A merest remembrance of the words, worlds, and characters that the Bard created will give you a boost into Mike Bartlett's audacious drama set in, as I type these words, the near future. It's a time frame that probably won't have changed as you read this, but it's a near future that could become the present in a heartbeat.
For now, Bartlett has the luxury of making up a future for characters we already know, but how will the play register when the inevitable triggering event actually happens and a different scenario most likely occurs in its aftermath? It could become an instantly dated play, but also, an intriguing what-if drama that retains its relevance as a tale of an individual's principles in a battle with traditions that can trump ethics.
The triggering event is the death of Elizabeth II, whose 64-years-and-counting reign has broken the record set by her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria. Another record-holder is her oldest son, Charles, the longest-serving heir apparent in British history, whose years of standing by, in Bartlett's play, have left him eager to be a force for the good of his people. The problem is that British law and centuries of tradition have turned the monarch's force into a symbolic sword, and not even the pen he uses to sign official documents has any might, since the signatures are preordained.
King Charles III opened in London in 2014, began a Broadway run the following year, and is now at ACT's Geary Theater in what is truly a conquering production. Written in blank verse, with the occasional rhyming couplet to put a button on scenes, Bartlett provides a Shakespearean structure, and while the words themselves pull from contemporary vernacular, those words can be arranged in 16th-century stylings even as kebob stands, social media, tabloid intrusions, and youthful freak-outs are evoked. The newly elevated King Charles III bemoans his powerless position, suggesting that "democracy is just an option like GPS on a car."
The crisis that immediately confronts the new king, the Parliament, and ultimately the nation is Charles' refusal to put his pro forma signature on legislation that would limit freedom of the press by heightening privacy rules. The conundrum is that if the king gets his way, royal prerogative undercuts democracy, but if he loses, democracy takes a hit to the freedoms it is meant to preserve. The leaders of Parliament are aghast at the king's assertion of power, wife Camilla supports him, older son William and wife Kate at first seem like bland extras in the drama, while younger son Harry is ready to renounce his royal standing to live the boho life with a girl he has just met.
On Daniel Ostling's towering set of stone walls and arched windows, the drama plays out with Shakespearean force as characters strut, brood, deliver soliloquies, encounter ghosts, and briskly clear the way for another scene to begin. David Muse's direction is very much at one with the playwright's work, and together they convince us that a contemporary tale of a monarchy whose members we know so well really could swell into something of Shakespearean proportions, stopping only short of regicide.
Robert Joy, as the new king, is more diminutive than the Prince Charles we know, and when he dons his ornamental military attire the image has an irony beyond original intentions. But the veteran actor is able to turn that into the reality of the moment with a thoughtful, intense, and layered performance that drives the production.
There is much coming and going by family members and politicians with various stakes in the king's actions, but the most vivid of these performances comes, unexpectedly, in the role of the person with the least interest in the unfolding drama. As Prince Harry, unlikely ever to sit on the throne, Harry Smith creates a swashbuckling bad boy who yearns for an everyday life of fast food, paparazzi-free frolics, and guiltless hedonism. He thinks he's found his soul mate in a feisty art student vividly played by Michelle Beck. Another strong performance amid many strong performances comes from Ian Merrill Peakes as the flabbergasted prime minister, a staunch royalist as long as the rulebook is followed.
It is Prince Harry who cuts to the core of the matter as he pleads for freedom from the strictures that come with "living atop the mound unearned." Everyone, he pleads to his father, "should be allowed an unpredicted life." But ultimately not even the chafing Harry has the will to accomplish that. Tradition can be an unsparing grindstone.
King Charles III will run at the Geary Theater through Oct. 9. Tickets are $20-$105. Call (415) 749-2228 or go to act-sf.org.