Review: The Lion In Winter By John Goldman

The second play I read recently, and book 86 for the year, was The Lion In Winter by John Goldman.  I have seen the movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole about 100 times, it is one of my favorites, and I finally knuckled down and read the play last week.

The Lion In Winter takes place at the twilight of the reign of King Henry II, the first Plantagenet king of England, at a fictitious Christmas court held in Chinon, English-occupied France, in 1183.  Henry has recently buried his eldest son and heir, Henry the Young King, and at age 50, with death encroaching upon him, he must make the decision of who among his remaining three sons should succeed him as king.  There is Richard the Lionheart, the eldest, cold, ruthless, and distant -- a splendid fighter who hates his father Henry as much as he favors his mother.  Second in line is Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, a capricious schemer who resents his middle-child status.  Finally, there is John, who at sixteen is Henry's favorite, a stupid, spoiled, rapacious youth.  Thrown into the mix is the boys' mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, dungeoned up for the last ten years after daring to lead a revolution against Henry II, set free for the Christmas court to once again scheme and plot against Henry for the crime of loving others more than her, and Philip, King of France, who has come to settle accounts with Henry for taking his younger sister, Princess Alys, as a mistress instead of marrying her off to Richard as previous agreed.  The play takes the term "family dysfunction" to new heights as Henry battles in vain to keep his empire intact.

This is a play of little action, and all talk, same as the film.  Nothing happens in the film, except for one two-minute battle scene in the first 10 minutes.  After that, it's all talking, back-biting, scheming, and sarcasm.  But it is great.  Henry's interactions with his wife Eleanor are the best as they fight and tussle, hating and loving each other indiscriminately.  The boys are equally as entertaining, as sympathetic as they are vile.  The only character that I think is judged unfairly is Princess Alys, relegated to a sniveling complainer for the entirety of the play.  A fantastic piece of literature, which leaves me hankering to watch the movie.

Rating: ****

Review: A Man For All Seasons by Richard Bolt

My sister Christina returned home from England in the wee hours of this morning, and during her vacation, I helped myself to two of the books in her ever-increasing stack of plays (my sister was a theatre student).  They were both on my "to-read" list, and now I have finished them both; they are #85 and #86 for 2011, both about English monarchs in very different times, and both very well-written IMO.  The first is A Man For All Seasons by Richard Bolt.

A Man For All Seasons is a play about the last few years in the life of Sir Thomas More, a lawyer, statesman, Chancellor of England, and after his death, a Roman Catholic saint and martyr.  An unlikely politician, More was promoted to the position of Chancellor of England at the insistence of King Henry VIII, towards the middle of his reign, around the time when he was angling for an annulment from his wife, Katherine of Aragon, in order to marry Anne Boleyn.  When More withheld his support for the annulment, on the grounds that the King had no right to break from the will of the Church of Rome, he provoked the King's displeasure, thus sealing his fate. 

More is a sympathetic character, a man who knows that he is doomed, yet is unable to sacrifice his conscience in order to save his life.  He is a celebrated character in many movies, books, and on television, yet he is generally a side character.  I thought that, in Seasons (having scene the 1966 film starring Paul Scofield as More), he was finally given a chance to shine in a starring role.  But in the play, this isn't the case.  More is once again relegated to a supporting character.  The "main character" in Seasons is the so-called "Common Man", who acts as narrator, manservant, rower, lawyer, judge, and executioner, all in one.  He has by far the most lines, and is the one who speeds the story along, so to speak.  He is noticeably absent in the film version.

The play is a bit dry in parts -- someone who isn't familiar with that period in history would be confused (I was the first time I saw the movie) -- and most of the supporting characters (the King, More's wife Alice) aren't portrayed in the best of lights.  Alice is relegated once again to a shrewish, sniveling woman, rather than the plain-speaking, yet loving wife she was known as.  More's relationship with his daughter Margaret is touched on, but only briefly -- his many other children are nonexistent.  I was also disappointed that his famous last words -- dying "the King's good servant, but God's first" -- are omitted from the play.

Yet, it is a well-written piece, and you can't help but admire Thomas More, whether Catholic, Protestant, or atheist, for his conscience and moral character.

Rating: ***