Mike Bartlett’s latest play is brutal. in a good way.
Shape-shifting actor Bertie Carvel, best known for creating the gorgeously unsettling Miss Trunchbull in “Matilda,” has returned to global bullying with his stunning and convincing performance as Donald Trump in Bartlett’s play about the upcoming US election, “The Forty-Seventh,” now playing in Old Vic in London. After his huge British hit “King Charles III” (which made a three-month move to Broadway), this is Bartlett’s second play in future history about the succession crisis told in Shakespearean blank poetry. But this time it fits the look and content a lot harder, and regardless of performance, it’s vastly more uneven.
Although Carvel sports padding and jaw-dropping synthetic parts literally and figuratively, the strength of his towering performance is entirely his own. It’s not just the tics and behaviors that have seized them; He’s also found Trump’s physical center of gravity to shift weight, slotted power, and full bodily behavior, one part before two parts rudeness. Combined with the chilling simulation of sound and fury from Trump’s limited-range delivery, and lyricism, the effect isn’t just compelling, it’s hypnotic.
Bartlett and director Robert Gould built laughs from the start by having designer Miriam Potheer and lighting designer Neil Austin present a large but cute Oval Office-like space, then had Trump unexpectedly step in on a golf cart.
From there, Bartlett uses Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter to indicate the disparity between fanatical behavior of ideas and grandiose dreams of a return to power. Although Trump’s model is Richard III’s soliloquy, all kinds of Shakespearean tragedies have been plundered by royal kinship, not least the “King Lear” scene in which a father roasts his three children: Donald Jr (Oscar Lloyd), a benign grim. Eric (Freddy Meredith) and appropriately silent but highly manipulative Ivanka (who purrs fatally Lydia Wilson), who wears a handbag like a grenade.
The Bartlett-Trump conspiracy sends not only presumptive Republican nominee Ted Cruz, but also Joe Biden who played the lead role of Simon Williams (who does the scene of Lady Macbeth sleepwalking for not much reason). This paves the way for Tamara Toni’s calm rise and assured Kamala Harris.
So far, very scathing sarcastic. But not only is Shakespeare’s scattered approach less than satisfactory, chromatic problems arise quickly because Bartlett isn’t content with the expected sharp punches and jokes. It also attempts to paint a serious and sophisticated picture of the dangers facing American democracy.
He initially attempted to personify the latter in sequences depicting a mob preparing for a January 6th-style attack, complete with a topless character. But Bartlett fails to give these brawlers a detailed dramatic function – they’re just a sham – so their rebellion scenes end up like awkward sequences of sound and fury, showing they’re not nearly enough.
Bartlett’s wide board poses more problems than it effectively solves. He writes sub-characters to work in proper subplots, but despite the actors’ best efforts, the characterization feels schematic. In the more focused second half, his analysis of the paralysis of the left’s sinking of goodwill, while the far right rejects the rules–in debates easily remedied by Tony’s win–adds compelling depth. But these Aaron Sorkin-like scenes of power brokering sit hard next to comedy moments in the style of “Saturday Night Live.”
Bartlett tries to get it both ways, but his twin styles are at war with each other so much that they compromise both intent and content. Rather than peaking, the split between the two reduces stress. However, Bartlett’s audacity—plus the fact that Tony, Wilson, and especially Carvel never gave up their grip on the audience—makes “The 47” rarely entertaining.
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