Los Angeles Times - Recommended
"..."King Charles III" is a talk play, but you can hear the characters thinking. Jim Abele, in one of the finest performances I've seen this year, reveals the inner workings of Charles' noble mind. The Prince of Wales' conscience is visible in the way his stare keeps narrowing into a squint."
Edge - Highly Recommended
"...Mike Bartlett's brilliant 2014 play, "King Charles III", has been given an excellent production at the Pasadena Playhouse. Bartlett posits the notion that just after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, in the near future, her eldest, Charles, Prince of Wales (Jim Abele), automatically becomes King, although his coronation won't take place for another three months."
Stage and Cinema - Somewhat Recommended
"...Bartlett employs a modern cast of well-known characters and imagines their lives in the style of a Shakespearean tragedy in blank verse. The language and meter are mostly effective, sometimes thrilling, and always intelligent. Yet, in constructing the piece, the playwright is burdened by two elements with which Shakespeare never had to grapple: First of all, we know what these people look and sound like in real life, and, secondly, the current politics of the day in Britain (as well as the United States) are far more unbelievable and turbulent than anything he speculates about."
Stage Scene LA - Highly Recommended
"...William Shakespeare is dead. Long live Mike Bartlett, author of Charles III, a "future history" The Bard himself might have written had he been looking back, not at Kings crowned Richard or Henry but at a 21-century monarch facing the crisis of his or any sovereign's reign. Now getting a spectacular Southern California Premiere at a newly revitalized Pasadena Playhouse, King Charles III is the best play William Shakespeare never wrote."
Stage Raw - Somewhat Recommended
"...Bartlett's play is smart and well-realized, though its inherent pacing problems are only aggravated under Michael Michetti's direction. The verse is so natural as to go mostly unnoticed, though a few characters occasionally use archaic turns of phrase to fit the meter. It's a nice touch, and a good reminder that Shakespeare was writing about the same kinds of court intrigues centuries earlier. Indeed, with so much ado about who's going to be king, who's going to be the greatest king, and even the appearance of a ghost of a deposed member of the royal family (Nike Doukas), it's hard not to be reminded of Macbeth."
Ticket Holders LA - Recommended
"...What results is total chaos, requiring tanks surrounding Buckingham Palace to protect the new monarch and creating a division in the family that could totally change the course of world history. Although there are some major flaws in Bartlett's play, including his inability to offer most of these well-known real-life characters more than the one dimension we already know, this ultimately is also a fascinating, epic effort, one that could never be presented successfully without the signature visually stunning perspective of a director as innovative as Michael Michetti."
