Archive: The Lion in Winter by James Goldman

'What shall we hang, the holly or each other?'

Long before the term 'dysfunctional' was commonly applied to families, James Goldman gave the world a glimpse of this age-old phenomenon by creating for the stage the members of England's original Plantagenet family: King Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their sons. Although best known for this play, The Lion in Winter, and the screenplay for the resultant movie, Goldman was a prolific writer who based many of his novels, plays, and screenplays on history, a subject he dearly loved.

Henry II of England releases Eleanor of Aquitaine, his wife of some 30 years, from house arrest to join him and their three remaining sons at Chinon castle for Christmas - not for a loving family reunion but to choose his heir. Eleanor prefers Richard (who becomes Richard the Lionheart); Henry prefers John, the youngest; while no one apparently cares one jot for Geoffrey, the middle son and most cunning of them all.

Confusing matters is the presence of Alais, Henry's adored mistress, and her brother Philip, King of France, who is demanding her marriage to Richard or the return of the valuable land that is her dowry.

The play takes place over two days as all six, with Alais as the pawn, engage in a chess battle of wit and machination, wielding words like weapons, to establish supremacy.

The Lion in Winter was the winner of many major theatre awards and, as one reviewer comments, it's written 'with a delicious, mordant wit; full of humour that bristles and burns'. And it is just this humour that can take the audience by surprise and make them wince as they laugh.

Director Iona Anderson assembled an experienced cast and crew who relished the opportunity of creating an atmosphere that swept the audience right out of Ghuznee Street and into the royal world of Henry, his queen and his mistress - a world where sons and daughters seem to be merely a means to an end; where everything, even love, has a price and yet where that love, no matter how skewed, cannot be truly lost. It's mulled wine with pokers...

But perhaps the last words should go to Henry: 'You can hear the thinking through the walls. There's Geoffrey, humming treachery. And Richard, growling out for gore. And Eleanor, she's thinking heavy thoughts like molten lead... My house is full of intellectual activity' or Eleanor: 'I should have been a great fool not to have loved you.'

Season: 29 June - 9 July 2005.

Review in the Dominion Post.

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