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Right off the top, understand this: "King Charles III," British playwright Mike Bartlett's audacious contemporary Shakespearean riff on royal power, isn't a biopic.

Instead, the speculative play uses the characters of the British royal family to unfold a political thriller that's wrapped inside a family story, says director David Ivers.

All the while, the drama-in-verse draws upon Shakespearean-style intrigue, such as ghostly appearances, ambitious wives and father-and-son conflicts. Meanwhile, as one family's generational conflicts are bubbling over, a nation's government is torn apart.

"Bartlett has written a really troubling and funny and tumultuous family drama — and we just happen to know the family at the center," says Ivers of the regional premiere production at Pioneer Theatre Company, which plays March 24-April 8. "It's intriguing to see what we all know about the royal family put under a microscope lens and cracked."

The plot is set in motion by the death of Queen Elizabeth II, when Prince Charles, after a lifetime-in-waiting, inherits the crown. In response to a phone-hacking scandal, the British Parliament has passed a bill restricting press freedom, but King Charles thinks the statute goes too far.

Instead of rubber-stamping the bill, Charles asks for changes, but government leaders refuse. The king disbands Parliament, which leads to riots, a national crisis and a traumatic confrontation with Prince William, encouraged by his wife, Kate Middleton.

Meanwhile, the king and Prince William see a ghost, while Prince Harry falls in love with a commoner who encourages him to leave his royal duties behind.

The art of the play is how it layers questions upon questions. "King Charles III" challenges our perceptions about Charles and Camilla, William and Kate and Harry, the family we've all obsessively read about in the tabloids and breathlessly watched in made-for-TV treatments such as Netflix's recent "The Crown." (And viewers take note: You'll have the rare chance to argue about the differences between live theater and TV staging when PBS airs "King Charles III" on May 14. See box for details.)

So there's the artistic intrigue of a dramatic story featuring characters drawn from real life. And then there's another level of intrigue in how that fiction resonates against the backdrop of contemporary events.

Since the play's 2015 Broadway run, surprising news events — such as England's Brexit vote to leave the European Union and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump — are raising stakes for "King Charles III's" theatergoers.

The drama pops "with a new vivacity," wrote Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones in a review of Chicago Shakespeare Theater's November production. "At this stateside moment, 'King Charles III' feels very much like essential viewing; its metaphors are very thinly veiled now."

The story of "King Charles III" is enriched by the idea of dual identities. "I can be there onstage, and people can have the image of Charles in their heads and that will help me, not hinder me," says John Hutton, a classically trained actor who is a longtime colleague of Ivers.

For local theatergoers, that dramatic funhouse effect is twisted another notch by the actors onstage, a handful of whom are familiar players to Utah Shakespeare Festival audiences, where Ivers is co-artistic director.

And then there's the fact that the play is crafted in iambic pentameter, a form that grew out of the story, says playwright Bartlett.

As he began considering the kind of king Charles might become, Bartlett realized he was considering his character as something of a Shakespearean tragic hero. "And if that was going to be the case, then he had to be a hero in a Shakespeare play," Bartlett told television critics earlier this year. "And if that was going to happen, then I had to learn how to write iambic pentameter, which I had no idea how to do."

Daunted, the playwright set aside the project for more than a year. "I didn't want to be sitting there, every line, counting out the syllables, doing my homework," he said. "So I had to sort of practice trying to get into the rhythm of saying the lines in that way and learning how it would flow, like I was writing any play." Along the way, he learned a different way to write, discovering "a whole new toolbox, but I just had to learn to use it."

Surprisingly, the language of "King Charles III" is easy on the ears, the cast says. "Iambic pentameter is a remarkably efficient way to communicate, as all the action takes place on the line," says Hutton, quoting Hamlet's advice to stage players, to "suit the action to the word, the word to the action."

For Shakespeare nerds, "it's just a dish for us to tackle this," says Grant Goodman, who plays Prince William. Goodman has performed in more than 60 Shakespeare plays, including a turn as Macbeth (and many other roles) at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

"I understand that Shakespeare can be daunting for people, and it takes the ear five or 10 minutes to adjust," Goodman says. "The miracle that [Bartlett] has pulled off is that it's in verse, but it's completely accessible, not archaic, language."

With her naturally curly blond hair, Samatha Eggers understates that she's never been told she looks like Catherine, the commoner who earned the title of Duchess of Cambridge when she married Prince William in 2011. The actor says it's a wonder what a dark wig and "fantastic costumes" can achieve.

"That Shakespearean aspect really allows the audience to go on the journey with us," Eggers says, adding that it helps to separate the characters onstage from the people we've seen on TV. "Then it doesn't feel so contemporary."

As for Ivers, he labels the play a contemporary masterpiece. ""We're looking at it like a Shakespearean play," the director says. "We have to use the same kind of muscle. The only difference is they use words like Botox."

Tribune TV critic Scott D. Pierce contributed to this story.

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The royal job of 'King Charles III'

The contemporary "what-if" family drama by British playwright Mike Bartlett receives a regional premiere at Pioneer Theatre Company.

When • March 24-April 8; performances at 7 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday

Where • Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, 300 S. 1400 East, University of Utah campus, Salt Lake City

Tickets • $25-$44 ($5 more on the day of the show); K-12 students half-price on Monday and Tuesday; at 801-581-6961; pioneertheatre.org, or theater box office from 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Monday-Friday.

TV royalty • A staged version of "King Charles III" airs Sunday, May 14, at 8 p.m. on PBS/KUED-Ch. 7.