Review: THE LION IN WINTER at Guthrie Theater

Holiday gatherings of dysfunctional families are nothing new. James Goldman's crackling script for THE LION IN WINTER is set at Christmas 1183, and since the family is a royal one with questions of succession looming, the scheming and double-crossing are fevered. Surely one reason we relish shows about families under stress (whether THE HOUSE OF ATREUS or DEATH OF A SALESMAN or AUGUST OSAGE COUNTY or THIS IS US) is that we can sit in the dark and feel some relief that our own lives may not be quite so messy!

The aging Henry II, King of England, has kept Eleanor of Aquitaine, his queen, locked up for years, hoping to keep her from making power plays of her own. They have three sons together, all now of an age to contend for the crown. Meanwhile, Henry's taken up with young Alais, sister to the King of France, Philip, who is a rival for regional hegemony. Philip is young and untested and therefore also unpredictable and dangerous.

For Christmas, Henry temporarily releases Eleanor from custody, and all three princes join their parents as well as Alais and Philip in an isolated, snowy castle, ably suggested by a dark and skeletal rotating wooden tower designed by Beowulf Boritt and Christopher Ash. Hundreds of (LED) candles, augmented of course by Clifton Taylor's delicate stage light, illuminate occasional drifting snowflakes from on high. It's beautiful and confining, underlining the ways in which all the characters are entangled, and also limiting director Kevin Moriarty's ability to use much movement to help tell the story.

But the heart of this show is the language, which is modern and full of insults and wit and the occasional shaft of undefatigable love. Eleanor may have the best lines and the aristocratic Laila Robins relishes delivering them. Kevyn Morrow as King Henry is less magnetic though in the early performance I saw he grew into the part as the play progressed. Torsten Johnson, as Richard Lionheart, the oldest son and Eleanor's favorite, is publicly martial, and privately credible. Michael Hanna, as the overlooked middle son Geoffrey, is incisive and exasperated. Riley O'Toole, the only non-Equity member of the cast, plays Henry's favorite and the baby of the family, John, without putting a pretty face on his whining ways. David Pegram as Philip and Thallis Santesteban as Alais succeed in making their characters' thinking visible, with relatively few moments in which to accomplish this. All survive to fight another day. This is not the only way in which this text is really a comedy.

As is always true at the Guthrie, the production is beautiful, helped by Karen Perry's costumes, which are wintry and textured and suggestive of period. They come right up to the edge of sumptuous without going too far. The multicultural casting, also common at the Guthrie, is admirable. I could wish for a Henry who is a little more charismatic or a little more dangerous to really pull me to the edge of my seat, but this is a solid rendering of a text-heavy voyeuristic romp through medieval intrigue.

THE LION IN WINTER plays through December 31 on the McGuire Proscenium Stage.

photo credit: Heidi Bohnenkamp

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