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The King’s Speech was a 2010 movie directed by Tom Hooper, the same guy behind Cats and others. But the movie was actually based on a real story, and as these things often go, was turned into a play by David Seidler, who also wrote the screenplay of the movie (which won an Oscar incorrectly that year). But Seidler had originally planned the story as a stage play, so after the success of the movie, it was easy to transition it.
Unlike a lot of movie/play adaptations, this one works well on stage because it was always meant to work there. It’s all about the conversations, after all, and the speech. The title is a play on words, referring to both the actual speech delivered by King George VI at the start of World War II and the difficulty the king had in speaking.
The play tells the same old tale, following ‘Bertie’ (his nickname after his first name Albert), played by Nick Westrate, as the young brother of David or Edward (the heir), played by Jeff Parker. David is terrible in many ways, in the traditionally ‘marrying for love’ issue of dating a married, twice divorced American woman named Mrs. Simpson. But he’s also terrible in that he’s an overt Hitler sympathizer and desirous of being an absolute monarch.
And he also makes fun of Bertie’s terrible stutter, which plagues in mixed company and especially when in front of one of those new-fangled microphones. So his wife Elizabeth (played by Maggie Lacey — this is the current Queen’s mother) arranged for him to visit a speech therapist named Lionel Logue (played by Michael Bakkensen). Lionel is brash, impudent, and improper (and worse — Australian!), but he seems to immediately be getting results.
So the two start a burgeoning friendship, but at the same time, war is inevitable, and Lionel’s wife Myrtle (Elizabeth Ledo) desperately wants to go back home to Perth. All the while, various royal advisors including Winston Churchhill (Kevin Gudahl) ponder the future of the throne. In general, all of the leads are great here, focusing heavily on Bertie and Lionel’s relationship and their difficulties. By the end, you can buy into the odd friendship of unequals.
Lionel and Myrtle’s relationship woes are played mainly for laughs, with several references made to their non-existent Australian accents (I guess they can’t do them?). Elizabeth’s role is also mainly a lighter one, with little of the heavier business Bertie and Lionel often delve into. The play itself is quite light in tone most of the time, with only a few touches of the actual darkness behind the scenes (including Bertie’s highly traumatic childhood).
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I want to pay particular compliments to the production design, which utilized a clever usage of light projections on the backdrop to simulate different environments as well as imply other contexts. The final titular King’s Speech pays off well too, ringing some legitimate emotion out of the tricky words, since we do grasp the historical context.
In the real story, perhaps it wasn’t as easy, but this production feels smooth and elegant, with a light touch and an enjoyable pace. It’s still got that vulgarity at times just like the movie, but otherwise it feels like something for most ages. A recommended tale of history when the world was on the precipice of disaster.
The King’s Speech runs through February 16 at Washington DC’s National Theatre. The show has a run time of 2 hours 15 minutes with one intermission, and is recommended for ages 13 and up.
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