McGuire Proscenium Stage / Nov 19 – Dec 31, 2016 by JAMES GOLDMAN STUDY GUIDE Inside THE PLAYWRIGHT Biography of James Goldman • 3 Comments about the Playwright • 4 THE PLAY Synopsis, Characters and Setting • 5 Historical Note about The Lion in Winter • 6 A Brief Production History and Analysis of The Lion in WInter • 7 Comments about the Play • 8 Quotes about the Play • 10 CULTURAL CONTEXT Notes about the 12th Century • 11 Biographies of the Historical Personages in the Play • 13 Parents, Children and Siblings • 16 Selected Glossary of Terms • 17 THE GUTHRIE PRODUCTION Notes from the Creative Team • 22 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION For Further Understanding • 25 Play guides are made possible by Guthrie Theater Study Guide Copyright 2016 DRAMATURG Carla Steen GRAPHIC DESIGNER Akemi Waldusky RESEARCH Stephanie Engel, Carla Steen All rights reserved. With the exception of classroom use by teachers and Guthrie Theater, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415 individual personal use, no part of this Play Guide may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including ADMINISTRATION 612.225.6000 photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Some materials BOX OFFICE 612.377.2224 or 1.877.44.STAGE TOLL-FREE published herein are written especially for our Guide. Others are reprinted guthrietheater.org • Joseph Haj, artistic director by permission of their publishers. Jo Holcomb: 612.225.6117 | Carla Steen: 612.225.6118 The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is an American center for theater performance, The Guthrie Theater receives support from the National Endowment production, education and professional training. By presenting both classical literature and for the Arts. This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State new work from diverse cultures, the Guthrie illuminates the common humanity connecting Legislature. The Minnesota State Arts Board received additional funds to support this activity from the National Endowment for the Arts. Minnesota to the peoples of the world. 2 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE AUTHOR About the by Stephanie Engel Playwright Literary Intern James Goldman was born in production company at the end Chicago on June 30, 1927, and of the 1970s entitled Raoulfilm, was the older brother of novelist a reference to the stuffed pet William Goldman (writer of The lion that was a common fixture James Goldman Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy by Goldman’s typewriter. “When and the Sundance Kid). James you’re [young] you have an endless Goldman spent his undergrad at number of ideas,” Goldman later the world. He viewed himself as a University of Chicago then studied joked in a 1980 interview with comedic writer. I think his sense of music criticism as a postgraduate at Publishers Weekly. “I just seem to humor was everything about him.” Columbia University before being have the knack for switching from drafted into the army during World one medium to the other.” The comedic timing and wry wit War II. Following his two-year stint within Goldman’s work did not in Korea and a dawning realization Indeed this knack continued go unnoticed. For the Hollywood that he had “neither the talent nor through the latter half of his career film of The Lion in Winter in 1968, the sensibility” for musical analysis, when Goldman took to writing which starred Peter O’Toole and Goldman shifted his attention novels, constructing stories like Katharine Hepburn, Goldman won to fiction writing, collaborating Myself as Witness in 1980, a tale the 1969 Academy Award for the with his brother to produce the about King John of England, a movie’s adapted screenplay. Two Broadway play Blood, Sweat and familiar face in The Lion in Winter years later, Follies debuted on Stanley Poole (1961) and A Family narrative. “I read about the things Broadway, the same year that one Affair (1962), a comedic musical they did, I studied them and of Goldman’s earliest works, They written with the assistance of then imagined what they felt and Might Be Giants, was produced lyricist and composer John Kander. thought and said and wanted from for film. With Goldman’s book and their lives,” Goldman explained Sondheim’s musical score, Follies Goldman also undertook his own when describing his process of won the New York Drama Critics independent projects in the 1960s, bringing historical characters to life Circle Award for best musical, writing They Might Be Giants through fiction. “What they were best actress in a musical and best in 1961, a play that caught the really like, of course, no one will director, and had a subsequent run attention of Stephen Sondheim ever know.” For him, the joy came of 522 performances. Then, in 1987, and led to their future partnership from “putting clues together” and when Follies moved to London, on the TV musical “Evening uncovering small, yet authentic the musical won both the Evening Primrose” in 1966, and the stage details – performing the role Standard and Olivier awards for musical Follies in 1971. Following of detective, not historian, for best musical, after an extensive his success with The Lion in Winter, historically constructed narratives. round of rewrites by Goldman. first produced more than six In fact, according to Goldman, the months before “Evening Primrose,” inspiration for The Lion in Winter On October 28, 1998, James Goldman continued to write came from his simple discovery Goldman passed away while stories that delved into the lives that Henry II had imprisoned his preparing for another revival of The of historical and classical literary wife Eleanor for a number of years, Lion in Winter on Broadway, over figures for not only the stage but only letting her out for holidays 30 years after he first saw the play the screen as well. Goldman’s like Christmas or Easter. When staged. Since his death, Lion has repertoire soon included renditions discussing The Lion in Winter with undergone numerous revivals both of Oliver Twist (1982) and Anna Utah Shakespeare Festival’s Kelli in the United States and abroad, Karenina (1985) for television Frost-Allred, Barbara Goldman, along with a restored edition of the audiences and Robin and Marian said that “The Lion in Winter could 1968 film and a TV movie starring (1976) and White Nights (1985) for have been a tragedy as easily as Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close. moviegoers. He and his second a comedy. And it has to do with wife, Barbara, even created a [my husband’s] point of view of GUTHRIE THEATER \ 3 THE AUTHOR Comments About the Playwright Meeting Goldman, one can When “The Lion in Winter” was understand how his view of human produced in 1966, it closed nature grows out of his own after only 83 performances, but personality. A large, genial bear of Goldman was commissioned to a man whose shy grin flashes often, write the film adaptation. After his Goldman has a sunny outlook. … screenplay for “The Lion in Winter” won an Academy Award, “all Goldman’s interest in England’s sorts of good things happened,” past first manifested itself about 20 Goldman recalls. He mentions years ago, when he began a play his screenplay for “Nicholas and about Robin Hood, “not as the Errol Alexandra” and “Robin and Marian.” Flynn character but as a person.” Goldman also wrote “Waldorf,” a (The project was abandoned, later novel that sold few copies. … to surface as Goldman’s screenplay for “Robin and Marian.”) In the Goldman is proud of his prolific course of his research, he came output, but he is modest about his across a reference to the fact that varied talents. “I just seem to have Henry II had Eleanor imprisoned the knack for switching from one PHOTO: HEIDI BOHNENKAMP for nine years, freeing her only for medium to the other,” he says. For Laila Robins (Eleanor of Aquitaine) and Christmas and Easter. From this the present, he is contemplating Kevyn Morrow (Henry) spark came “The Lion in Winter.” another novel, hoping that “Myself as Witness” will establish him as a Goldman also discovered that well-known name in the field. He is In Follies we deliberately decided contemporary sources said very tired, he says, with a twinkle in his not to create characters with wars little about King John. In the Middle eye, of being known as “the guy and all. Everybody would be, not a Ages, Goldman explains, recording who wrote ‘The Lion in Winter.’” type, but an essence of whatever history was not considered an they were about, which is why important profession. It was Sybil S. Steinberg, “PW Interviews: James James Goldman’s book got so fortuitous that several great Goldman,” Publishers Weekly, February 8, heavily criticized. People didn’t historians lived during the reign of 1980 understand what he was trying Henry II and his successor, Richard to do. I kept hearing people say, the Lionhearted, but around the Nowadays James Goldman, who “Those people are so bloodless.” turn of the 13th century “all the died in 1998, is mainly remembered Yes. That’s the idea of the piece. good chroniclers began to die.” for having written the book for Now that may be a wrong notion, John’s terrible reputation was Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies.” In but it was a very conscious choice, foisted on us by historians writing his lifetime, though, “The Lion in to create poetic essences, and by a full generation after his death, Winter” was his best-known piece poetic I mean the reduction of a Goldman notes. … of work – but not for the original human character in a situation to Broadway production, which ran its most succinct form.