On paper, Peter Morgan’s drama “The Audience” sounds like a cure for insomnia. The plot — such as it is — imagines what transpired during roughly 10 private meetings (“audiences”) between Queen Elizabeth II and eight of the 12 prime ministers who led England’s Parliament during her lengthy reign.
In England, the Queen is constitutionally bound to always agree with the elected heads of state, so there’s no obvious conflict to “The Audience.” Sticking a series of duos in a room where they agree about various governmental policies hardly seems like a recipe for compelling theater.
Yet despite those considerable challenges, Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace’s production of “The Audience” provides a fascinating glimpse into personalities that are generally reduced to headlines or soundbites. In imagining the dialogue between monarch and elected rulers (the audiences are never made public), Morgan — also the author of the Helen Mirren-led film “The Queen” and the 2016-23 Netflix series “The Crown” — highlights the thorny political issues of the day and the outsize personalities wrestling with them.
Over the course of some two hours and 20 minutes, director Jessica Fisch provides a fly-on-the-wall perspective that reveals the pendulum swings of history through a series of intimate, absorbing conversations.
More than half a century of history gets up-close and personal in “The Audience,” and Fisch’s mighty ensemble makes it lucid and compelling as a series of flawed, striving humans struggle to lead the British populace through everything from the Suez Canal Crisis of the 1950s to massive domestic labor strikes of the 1980s to Britain’s increasingly rocky relationship with the European Union in the 2010s.
“The Audience” will be a richer experience for audiences with a passing familiarity of British prime ministers from the early 1950s to the 20teens, but knowledge of 20th/21st century British governance isn’t a prerequisite.
Fisch’s ensemble of 20 is one of those uniquely Chicago groups that illustrates the extraordinary breadth of talent in the area. From Matt DeCaro’s blustering, cantankerous Winston Churchill to Susie McMonagle’s memorably icy, politely contemptuous Margaret Thatcher, the cast makes the most of Morgan’s every word, giving each scene immediacy and intrigue.
But “The Audience” rests squarely on the shoulders of Queen Elizabeth, played by Janet Ulrich Brooks in a reprise of a role she played at TimeLine Theatre in 2017. The queen’s evolution over the course of a lifetime provides a richly satisfying dramatic arc.
Brooks can do both regal and self-deprecating with equal force and authenticity. The queen may be bound to agree no matter what with her PMs, but Brooks makes it abundantly clear when Elizabeth disapproves of the direction the government is taking.
There are words behind the words here, and Brooks offers a master class in rendering subtext undeniable, highlighting every subtle shade of it with little more than the lift of an eyebrow or a slightly altered tone. She’s magnificent.
As for the parade of prime ministers, they are also a memorable lot. John Judd’s John Major (PM from 1990-97) becomes a formidable lion in winter, determined to push the nascent European Union forward even as his popularity wanes and he approaches a humiliating defeat to Tony Blair.
As Blair (1997-2007), Alex Goodrich (double-cast as 2010-16 PM David Cameron) delivers a combination of charm, and ambition. In one of the most memorable scenes, he talks up his decision to send troops to Iraq in 2003 for a war he insists will be quick, definitive and righteous. Long before the benefit of hindsight, the Queen sees imminent catastrophe looming in Iraq.
Ron E. Rains is more than a little heartbreaking as Harold Wilson (1964-70, 1974-76), whose photographic memory couldn’t save him from Alzheimer’s Disease. Wilson’s meetings with the queen evolve from something akin to joy to despondent vulnerability after he reveals his diagnosis.
The ensemble also benefits greatly from Omi Lichtenstein, who plays Elizabeth as a child. Morgan’s device of having the older Elizabeth interact with her younger self humanizes the monarchy by providing a window into the privacy of her formative years, the adult and child Elizabeth each making the other deeper, and more sympathetic.
The action plays out on Andrew Boyce’s set design, which looks like a victim of budget shortfalls. In the audience room of Buckingham Palace, pillars, door lintels and moldings are merely painted on, trompe d’oeil façades look like a theme-park version of the palace. Balmoral Palace is similarly undercooked, defined primarily by a series of hotel-room worthy paintings.
The set is no dealbreaker here. On the subtly ferocious strength of Brooks’ Elizabeth II and the ensemble’s parade of ministers charged with shaping the empire, “The Audience” richly deserves its own.