The Audience

For our first outing as a class we went to go see the play "The Audience" with Helen Mirren. The play is basically about how the Queen of England meets with her Prime Ministers every week to discuss what's going on. Since this meeting is private, and neither party is allowed to discuss with anyone else what was said during, it's interesting to see how she is portrayed in the play. Helen Mirren, who has played the Queen before, did a really great job throughout, although that should come as no surprise because she's a fantastic actress as well as a very nice person. We got the chance to see her come out of the theater after the performance and she was kind enough to sign autographs and take pictures with people. It was my first time ever seeing a play and I really enjoyed the whole experience. At times I didn't really understand some of the humor because I'm not that familiar with British history, but it was quite entertaining. Themes that I found while watching the play were those of tradition and power. I chose tradition because this play is based on something that has been going on for decades since before the Queen came into power and speaking of power, the whole play is based on the Queen's reign. I did come to find out however, that she does not necessarily have as much power as you would think being that she is the Queen, but she still has a lot of influence over her people and they really do love her. Overall it was fun and I'm glad we had an opportunity to go and learn a little bit more about the British culture.