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| Photo by Johan Persson |
Helen Mirren reprises her role as Queen Elizabeth II on Broadway. We saw the London production of The Audience, and the film The Queen (no relation, but yet another chance to see the great Mirren). Our favorite was the Broadway production.
The Playbill comes with a helpful reference card to the
twelve prime ministers the Queen has had Tuesday audiences with over the course
of her life since the coronation at age twenty-five. As others have noted before us, the high notes are higher
than they were on the West End (which we reviewed here). But we say, What's wrong with that? Her Majesty seems to prefer her Labour Party PMs over the Conservatives, however the
interesting Scottish PM Gordon Brown is again miscast. Fireball Texan Judith
Ivey is cast against type for “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher, yet she delivers
on toughness. Another American actor familiar from stage and screen, Dylan Baker, disappears into the role of John Major and even gets the accent down. Richard McCabe reprises his historically inaccurate though super charming
Harold Wilson.
The staging is brilliant, especially the quick
costume-wig-and-handbag changes, and Buckingham Palace appears less
chilly than it did in the London production. Balmoral Castle is cozy, with the corgis
dashing by and her personal favorite prime minister, Labour's Harold Wilson, and Mirren gets to swing her hips to the skirl of the
bagpipes.
The Broadway production goes further in humanizing the Queen, assuring us that life in the palace was not a total drag—even though she was
taught from childhood to never let her feelings show. Elizabeth Teeter and
Sadie Sink play the future queen with aplomb. Tracy Sallows is lovely as Nanny
Bobo, and she can sing like a bird. Sallows understudies Mirren in surely the hardest role to live up to on
earth.
Since the production is closing, it’s not a spoiler to say
that after all the curtain calls, the curtain closes and parts again for a
generous last glimpse of Dame Helen Mirren as HRH Elizabeth.
Bistro Chat Noir smells so good, it tastes so good, and the wine list contains moderately priced wines. We ordered a la carte the frisée salad with poached egg and lardons (perfect), a delicious puréed chickpea soup (classic), grilled branzino sea bass and salmon steak crisp on the outside and tender inside - gorgeous grilled fish with truffle French fries. Lunch and brunch include a famous BLT and the truffle fries. When it’s nice you can sit outdoors with your borzoi on a leash and the second husband in training.
