THE LION IN WINTER
“It is 1183 and we’re barbarians . . .” –Eleanor of Aquitaine, in The Lion in Winter
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But as the play progressed, I realized how fundamentally right she was. Casting Bill, it turned out, was not only appropriate–it was pretty clever: her contemporary looks supply a neat visual metaphor for the literary gimmick that makes The Lion in Winter work.
Oh, sure, the dramatis personae would remain unaffected. Henry II would still be the canny, formidable king of England; Eleanor of Aquitaine would still be his cultivated, treacherous–and occasionally incarcerated–queen; their sons Richard, Geoffrey, and John would still involve themselves in habitual intrigues against Dad and each other, while France’s young King Philip II would still align and betray, align and betray. That’s all part of the historical record.
The mawkishness might have matured into something like poignancy if director Richard S. Kordos had allowed a sharper anger to penetrate this Body Politic production. John throws his tantrums and Geoffrey has his bouts of trembly lipped passion here, sure; but their fits are always undercut in the end. Neither they nor anyone else gets a clean moment in which to declare–unconditionally and without irony–that this really hurts. The play may have its jokes, both intentional and inadvertent, but those jokes needn’t exclude the possibility of a sympathetic response every now and then.
