Abingdonian 2020

31 www.abingdon.org.uk Lent Term King Charles III Proroguing Parliament, a constitutional crisis, departures from the royal family – surely not, we all thought, sitting down for the first read through of Abingdon and St Helen’s 2020 production of King Charles III. Despite the initial focus on a human reality and importance to the play and an appreciation for its exploration of divided politics and family in a polarised time, a more immediate relevance would be found closer to the opening night. As it was approaching the cast of the show became acutely aware of the astonishing prophecies made by the 2014 writing of Mike Bartlett (the OA and esteemed playwright), as Harry and Meghan were negotiating a withdrawal from the royal family and politics faced existential dilemmas of a noticeable magnitude. What unfolds in the text is a breakdown on many fronts. A breakdown of the Royal family, of England as a nation and of the King himself as he tries to test the limits of his constitutional power. The challenge of the play lies in that fact that Bartlett does not give Charles an unarguable point to hold but instead the opinion that a new law restricting the rights and power of the press should not be passed. On its surface this law, coming from a Labour government in the play, sounds as if it would have an appreciative audience among left wing politics of the 21st century. The issue then morphs into a question of autocracy and ultimately, the play refuses to let the autocratic figure of King Charles wield power with William ascending the throne. This plot line is combined with scenes similar to an Alastair Campbell No 10 and ‘The Thick of It’, and a domestic plot line as Harry desires to parachute from his royal duties, but again, the unwavering nature of the Royal family prevails. During any rehearsal process I often think about the idea of searching for something. Broadly, if one tries to boil it down, an actor is just trying to negotiate with words on the page and a director to produce something entertaining, a piece of drama people want to watch. The joy in this endeavour, I think, is found through the joint enterprise with others and people who may have no connections with each other. In a school environment specifically, where we so often fraction ourselves off into different friendship groups, different schools or different year groups, the senior productions have the immense ability to bind an otherwise unrelated group of people together. All can rejoice when we feel, at the end of a two-hour rehearsal, we have stumbled across something fundamentally exciting in a scene, and all can feel frustration when an energy is lost or a moment cannot be translated from something dull into something engaging. The reward is also personal. I am usually surprised when a character suddenly seems to appear days before a first performance. Trying to find a character is a strung-out ordeal and small incremental changes can rarely be felt from day to day, but when compiled the alteration is palpable. It had been a while since I had performed in any school production in a large capacity and unfortunately, the reality of nerves had escaped me over that period. Standing in the wing and trying to get ready for the show, I could only think of every time we had managed to mess up the entire opening. However, nerves themselves are very useful things and in many ways enlightened me to the reality of theatre as an activity. Just before you take the steps into the limelight a short gasp for air is consumed and there is a sharp bracing of the muscles – almost like jumping off a cliff, though not nearly as bad! In essence, there is enormous potential for failure and yet, it is so often this fear which binds a company together in the final stages of preparation. I could feel a new temperature in the room as we all gathered for vocal and physical warm ups, just able to hear the buzz of the first few audience members arriving. The new ‘temperature’ I felt could of course be attributed to the roughly 3 kilos of silver hair gel that had been slathered on about an hour before to quell my otherwise potently ginger locks. Harry may be a red-head, but Charles certainly is not! Thanks go from all the cast to Mr McDonnell and the Amey Theatre technical crew for the amazing work they did in bringing this production together. Samuel King, 6AGH