Here is the ultimate drama of courtly intrigue and kingly caprice, kissed with idealistic rhetoric and romantic political fervor. Best of all, it's played out down the block from the Royal Theatre at The Other Place, where you sit so close to the swift action you can see the spittle forming on the King's and Queen's lips as they deliver their impassioned speeches. At the center of this pressure cooker, set in the spring of 1568 at the palaces of Aranjuez and Madrid, is the crown prince Don Carlos, played by boyishly handsome Rupert Penry-Jones. The Don was once betrothed to the reigning Queen Elizabeth and still carries a torch for her, even though she's now married to Carlos' cold, tyrannical father, King Philip II. Should he catch one sniff of illicit passion between his queen and his son, the volatile Philip is likely to lop off both of their pretty heads.
Penry-Jones's obsession and neurosis are too frenetically fevered in the early going, but with his most trusted confidante winning the favor of the King and an amorous princess rabid for vengeance, the swirl of events catches up with his intensity. John Woodvine and Josette Simon are more restrained -- and dramatically compelling -- as the king and queen. Hers is the serenity of virtue, his is the self-assurance of absolute power. The cavalcade of set-piece encounters involving these two is a perpetual delight.
The uplift of Schiller's rhetoric and the exhilaration of his dizzying plot twists actually make it difficult to feel Carlos' tragedy keenly. And yes, there are excesses of irrationality and noble sentimentality. Go for the thrills, the poetry, and the bravura of Woodvine and Simon. Ray Fearon as the wily confidante and Claire Price as the tempestuous princess are also formidable -- and very human.
