King of the Forest

IT'S ALWAYS a pleasure to see what a theater company, professional or otherwise, does with a play which arguably cannot be lone wrong. Such a play, at least on the surface, is Lion in Winter, James Goldman's sparklingly written drama of the savage political and emotional infightings of a family of dazzling twelfth-century English monarchs. It would take a heavy directorial hand, indeed, to dull the brilliant salvos of dialogue that flash from member to member of the illustrious Plantagenets--Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the future Richard Lionheart. Geoffrey Monmouth, and King John--as they vie for control of England's future. "I was torn from you by the midwife," the adolescent John cries out at this mother, "and I haven't seen you since." "Yes," chimes in sullen Richard, his rival for the throne, "blame the midwife. She threw out the baby and kept the afterbirth."

The dialogue rarely drops below this level of snap in Lion in Winter; its showers of sparks keep the production moving through more than two hours of miraculously complex family machinations. Henry, aging at 50 and increasingly anxious about England's future under his three bickering sona, wants to give everything to John, the youngest and least appealing of the brood. Eleanor, his Queen, who in youth divorced the King of France for a tempestuous marriage with Henry, has aged too and embittered; all she has left is determination to thwart Henry's choice, whatever desire of his she can detect.

These characters are brilliant. Their passion and cleverness never flag, and they make Lion an astounding play to watch--and probably to read as well. And the able crew of Dunster House dramatists rises admirably to the challenge of getting through the many, many, many such exchanges, and navigates the audience through a brisk but shattering evening of theater. Most impressive, perhaps, is their success in giving some degree of movement and unity to what could be just an endless succession of one-liners. For all the characters actually accomplish, Lion could plausibly begin or end at any scene change, as Henry, Eleanor and company manipulate and betray one another, struggle and stalemate for the upper hand.

Director Beth Schacter counteracts the tendency for scenes to blur together by fashioning different personalities for each of the three sons--Richard, Geoffrey and John--and for their foil, Philip of France. As far as plot action goes, the four are practically interchangeable. But the four strong actors who play them differ in manner and style as much as appearance, each marking out a distinctive character. Mark Morland as the already famous Richard stands tall and regal; Joel Dando makes of Geoffrey the conniving serpent his actions prove him, but every detail of gait and intonation inspire empathy as well for a tortured, constantly overlooked middle child. The meatiest role of the three is probably that of John, the obnoxious teenager utterly scorned by siblings and parents alike, and Justin Richardson treads the fine line between caricature and believability, screeching and gloating with aplomb and a superb sense of timing.

BUT IN SUCCEEDING, Richardson shows where the other sometimes fall short. For dashing back and forth across the sumptuous for-trimmed stage, hitting innumerable peaks of triumph and frustrated despair, the Dunster cast occasionally nets carried away by the extravagant dialogue and forgets to add the infinitesimal pause, or flicker, or tone change that would transform sheer cleverness into reality.

The most consistent in avoiding this pitfall is Susannah Rabb as the incredible Eleanor, whose abundant stage presence lets her lea into moments and deliver lines with the weight they deserve. Chris Keyser fares slightly less well as Henry, probably the most challenging character to convey, with by far the most lines--show-stopping or otherwise--and the most emotional peaks. Often his monologue's become so passionate and vigorous that they border on the shrill, shortchanging the "moments of truth" that must descend on a king who has fought to build a near-imperial England and-now sees his grown sons gathered vulture-like to tear it apart. Amid all the yelling his passions provoke, his sons and enemies fall prey occasionally to the same overexcitement. The result is sort of a continuous rushing into the breach, a heroic rattling through brilliant language rather than feeling, creating a nagging sense that one has no time to catch the real Henry, the real Eleanor.

None of this means, though, that the pure vigor and passion can't put enough spin on the story to provoke a certain exhilaration. In this jewel-studded dagger-edged world, desperate passions in unshaded colors often seem more believable than subtleties could in their ability to ignite passions and away a throne. "Look," cries John at one point, cowering away from Richard. "He's got a knife!" "A knife," his mother screams back, "Of course he has knife! We all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!" For barbarians, the Plantagenets pack in impressive wallop to the modern sensibility. Were they subtle and sophisticated, we might not thrill the way we do.