The 47th

When I was in London in 2022, I just missed being able to see The 47th, a new verse drama by Mike Bartlett that imagined a Presidential contest two years later between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Interestingly enough, I was back in the UK when President Biden announced he was dropping out of the race, meaning that in some respects, Bartlett's play was prophetic. Of course, just like Bartlett's previous drama King Charles III, many of the details proved inaccurate, even if other aspects were bourn out by events.

With the real Harris-Trump race heating up, I decided to pick up a copy of The 47th from The Drama Book Shop. The play opens with Trump speaking a denigrated iambic pentameter, since the conceit here is--like with King Charles III--the imagined future is told in the form of a Shakespearean chronicle play. Lear-like, Trump tests his three adult children to see who loves him the most. (As in real life, Trump never mentions Tiffany in the play.) After Don Jr. and Eric gush about how much they love their father, Ivanka says nothing. This might appear to be a nod to Cordelia in King Lear, but then Ivanka delivers a startling speech:

          If as my father you know not my love

          Then words will not identify your daughter.

          Your rightful heir will never beg, but trade.

          You know my talent, and my promise, too.

          I'm grateful for all that you have bestowed

          And vow that I'll repay that loan not just

          In full but with my share of interest.

One thing the play got wrong was envisioning a world in which the 2024 Republican nomination didn't belong to Trump from the beginning. Instead, Bartlett shows Ted Cruz as the front runner and presumed nominee. Trump offers to endorse him, but once in front of a crowd, he starts turning people against Cruz, referring to him as "an honourable man" just as Marc Antony does of Brutus is Julius Caesar. Trump ends up with the nomination, and though Act II does feature a Republican Senator from Ohio, it is not J.D. Vance but Ivanka who becomes Trump's running mate in the play.

The play also features a funeral for President Carter, who is thankfully still with us and hopes to cast his ballot this November. At the funeral, Trump whispers into Biden's ear, "I know about Jill." This small hint worms its way into Biden's brain, leading him to sleepwalk through the White House like Lady Macbeth. One advisor even worries aloud that the President will not be able to debate his opponent in such a condition. The play has Biden not just drop out of the race, though, but resign his office entirely, making Harris the 47th President, and thus the title character.

After the Trump in the play lets loose chaos on the streets, he is momentarily placed in jail. Bartlett begins a scene in Act IV quoting directly lines from Richard II. Trump immediately renounces the Shakespeare, however, saying that sitting upon the ground and telling sad stories of the death of kings is for "losers" not people like him. The fifth act returns to King Lear, with a reporter appearing having lost his eyes like the Earl of Gloucester. Ultimately, order is restored, but the audience is left wondering if what comes next might actually be worse.

The 47th didn't get everything right, but in its broad outline, it is uncomfortably close to the election currently going on in the United States.