Devised by: Katrina Hendrey (adapted by Julian Machin)
Director: Denise Silvey
Dedicated to the memory of Timothy West, who died a year ago and was instrumental in supporting the development of this production, Katrina Hendrey’s Queen, based on the journal, letters and public writings of Queen Victoria and placed to musical accompaniment, was performed for 28 years by West’s wife, Prunella Scales. In a new version at King’s Place with Deborah Findlay playing the long-reigning monarch from teenage girl to international empress, Scales is the voice of Victoria’s final months at Osborne House which West helped to record two years ago, marking a significant continuation of a play that hands the baton to a new actor.
Framed by her reflective writing in 1901 as Victoria looks back at her life, the audience is taken through time to the 1830s when the then Princess Victoria is frustrated by her boring lessons and would much rather dress up her dog. As the play jumps through the years, she gains a kingdom, a husband and a lot of children – about whom she has strong opinions – while losing a great deal along the way. Hendrey’s approach, newly adapted by Julian Machin running at an unbroken 80 minutes, showcases the emotional journey of the most significant woman of her age.
The key characteristic of Queen is the music setting, which takes works by well-known composers, including Beethoven, Bach and Mendelssohn and mixes them with original songs by Prince Albert and Louis Antoine Jullien, who created a piece marking Victoria’s visit to Scotland in 1842. And the creative team place these pieces at significant moments that accompany her coronation or control of India, with more personal recollections recorded in her journal, such as hopefully dancing with the man she would eventually marry (Quadrilles by L. Dufrene) or listening to her husband play the piano before dinner (Schmerz der Liebe by Prince Albert). Played by pianist Michael Dussak, the intersection of words, music, and biography brings the piece to life in an inventive way.
Findlay too charmingly captures the different stages of Victoria’s life, the girlish tone of the young wife in love, the matronly frustration of having so many children and the imperious older monarch revelling in the servitude of others. Along the way, as the Queen quotes often from those around her, Findlay impersonates the grandeur of Lord Melbourne, the floral subservience of Disraeli, as well as the Scottish inflexion of John Browne.
But Victoria lived a very long time, and with so much ground to cover, the stationary approach to this piece, which is read from a script, also feels protracted. Director Denise Silvey occasionally has the performer stand in moments of high drama – much like a Westlife key change – but the overall effect is too samey. Queen, first written in the late 1970s, is also showing its age.
It is a beautiful story of a woman in love, determining “If I must live on…” yet the key political players who weave in and out reveal very little about the changing nature of government and social conditions across the reign, nor is there an opportunity to reflect more roundly on the darker impact of Empire on those who were subjected. While Victoria herself believed in its purpose, the team could think harder about ways to place her words in a new context with different vocal inflexions or projections that challenge her point of view.
Her voice is compelling and very human, but what does it mean to hear her words today?
Reviewed on 28 September
