Power is a play by the British playwright Nick Dear

Nick Dear

Nick Dear is a writer for stage, screen and radio. He received a BAFTA for his first screenwriting credit, a TV adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion....

. It is set in the court of King Louis XIV of France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. It deals with the intrigue and tension of the court and explores the events and ideas that led Luis XIV to take full control of government and become an absolute monarch.

The play is essentially a drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

, but also contains a great deal of comedy and innuendo

Innuendo

An innuendo is a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging , that works obliquely by allusion...

.

Power was first performed by the Royal National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 at the Cottesloe Theatre on July 3, 2003, and the original cast was:

• Jean-Baptiste Colbert
  Jean-Baptiste Colbert
  Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...
  
   – Stephen Boxer
  Stephen Boxer
  Stephen Boxer is an English actor who has appeared in films, on television and on stage and is best known for appearing in the BBC One daytime soap opera Doctors...
  
  
• Anne of Austria
  Anne of Austria
  Anne of Austria was Queen consort of France and Navarre, regent for her son, Louis XIV of France, and a Spanish Infanta by birth...
  
   – Barbara Jefford
  Barbara Jefford
  Barbara Jefford, OBE is a British Shakespearean actress best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre, and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's Ulysses.-Early life:Jefford was born Mary Barbara Jefford in...
  
  
• Nicolas Fouquet
  Nicolas Fouquet
  Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV...
  
   – Robert Lindsay
  Robert Lindsay (actor)
  Robert Lindsay is an English actor who is best known for his television work, especially his roles of Wolfie Smith in Citizen Smith, Michael Murray in G.B.H., Captain Sir Edward Pellew in Hornblower and Ben Harper in My Family which has been on television screens since 2000.-Early life:Lindsay was...
  
  
• Louise de la Valliere
  Louise de La Vallière
  Louise de La Vallière was a mistress of Louis XIV of France from 1661 to 1667. She later became the Duchess of La Vallière and Duchess of Vaujours in her own right...
  
   – Hattie Morahan
  Hattie Morahan
  Harriet Jane Morahan is an award-winning English television, film, and stage actress.-Background:Hattie Morahan is the youngest daughter of television and film director Christopher Morahan and actress Anna Carteret...
  
  
• Louis XIV – Rupert Penry-Jones
  Rupert Penry-Jones
  Rupert William Penry-Jones is an English actor, best known for his role as Adam Carter in the British television series Spooks, also broadcast under the title MI-5.-Family life:Penry-Jones was born in London on September 22, 1970...
  
  
• Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
  Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
  Philippe of France was the youngest son of Louis XIII of France and his queen consort Anne of Austria. His older brother was the famous Louis XIV, le roi soleil. Styled Duke of Anjou from birth, Philippe became Duke of Orléans upon the death of his uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans...
  
   – Jonathan Slinger
  Jonathan Slinger
  Jonathan Slinger is a British actor. He trained at RADA, graduating in 1994. From there, he went to work at the Royal National Theatre and Shakespeare's Globe...
  
  
• Henriette d'Angleterre – Geraldine Somerville
  Geraldine Somerville
  Geraldine Margaret Agnew-Somerville is a British actress best known for her roles as Detective Sergeant Jane "Panhandle" Penhaligon in Cracker, and Lily Potter in the Harry Potter film series.-Early life:...
  
  

More recently, Power was performed by the Putney Arts Theatre Company at Putney Arts Theatre in February 2006, and the Lace Market Theatre in Nottingham between 17 and 22 July 2006. Power was premiered in the Finnish National Theatre

Finnish National Theatre

The Finnish National Theatre , founded in 1872 in the city of Pori, is located in central Helsinki on the northern side of the Helsinki Central Railway Station Square. It is the world's oldest theatre with performances in Finnish...

 (Kansallisteatteri) 6 September 2006. It has also been produced at theatres in Portugal (Teatro Municipal de Almada), Poland and Hungary.

The Portuguese production of POWER: http://www.ctalmada.pt/cgi-bin/wnp_db_dynamic_record.pl?dn=db_temporada&sn=temporada_2005&orn=46