James Goldman (1) (1927–1998)

This is the play that the movie came from, and it's one of the most exciting and witty plays written. My edition has an interesting introduction by Goldman in which he relates how many people believe that the movie was made because the play was a big hit, which wasn't true. It was the movie, released over two years after the play had closed its brief Broadway run (with Christopher Walken as King Philip) that turned the play into a classic.

It's Christmas, 1183, and the three princes, Richard, show more Geoffrey and John have gathered at their father's palace. Joining them from her exile is their mother, Queen Eleanor, who Henry has kept under guard somewhere for ten years while he took their French adopted daughter, Princess Alais, as his lover. On this day, Alais' brother, the king of France, has come to demand either the return of his sister or the fulfillment of Henry's contract: that Alais marry Richard and inherit the Aquitaine. That Henry does not want to give up Alais, his property or be ordered about are the immediate problems, but the bigger problem, and the plot of the play, is that Henry and Eleanor were and are horrible parents. Richard rages and openly desires to kill his father, Geoffrey repays his family for neglecting him by setting them up to be caught in his lies and John throws tantrums to guilt his father into giving him the crown. The dialogue is sharp, brutal and funny in a "see, your family could be worse" way that I love. show less

No matter how many times, and in how many venues, I am exposed to this work, I simply cannot give it less than five stars. It is a delightful work, based on the history of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, centered around one Christmas homecoming for Eleanor, on her yearly respite from the exile where her husband had locked her up. The battles between these two strong-willed individuals tear apart a family and could potentially tear apart a country. Three sons - one will inherit the throne. show more In an era before primogenitor, there was no certainty as to which one. Henry wants Prince John to succeed; Eleanor is determined to have Richard ascend the throne. If these names sound familiar, they should - they are the King Richard and Prince John of Robin Hood fame. The situation is complicated by the presence of Henry's young mistress, who is engaged to John - or to Richard - and her brother, the King of France, who wants her either married off or her dowery returned. At stake are two valuable pieces of land that Henry has no intention of releasing. Who is scheming against whom, and who will prove the winner? The smartest? The strongest? The one with the most pimples? It's a tour de force. You only thought your family was dysfunctional. show less

I'm about to start rehearsing to play Richard in this play, which goes up in June. It's a revisiting. I read it in college when I helped build the set for an OSU theater department production. Eight years later I played Geoffrey in a community theater version. Now on to Richard.

The play takes place on a Christmas Day in the twelfth century, and concerns a unique dysfuctional family who just happen to be the Royal Family of England. There's the father, Henry II, trying to effect a peaceful show more transition of power to one of his sons while marrying his mistress, Alais. There's the mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the richest woman in the world, who is trying to finagle her freedom and the accession to power of another son. These two hate one another passionately, although the ghost of their love lingers.

And then there are the boys. Richard, a bloody-minded warrior, Geoffrey, an intellectual plotter, and John, a sniveling brat. Add to the mix the young French king, Philip, and his sister, the above-mentioned Alais.

Plots and schemes abound, as do witty putdowns, as the characters plot each other's deaths and simultaneously cry out for each other's love.

Three key observations this time around:

1) This is what the world would look like if psychiatry had never been invented. The family members practice their "talking cures" with one another, although no cure is in sight.

2) This is the original "Game of Thrones", what with its combination of cutting, witty barbs and internecine plots.

3) In many ways, the Plantagenet Family Christmas is the original "Festivus", complete with the airing of grievances, but without the pole and feats of strength.

Doing this show again is going to be fun. show less

This was a nigh-unto-irresistable journey back thirty-five years. The author is the man who wrote the play The Lion in Winter and won an Oscar for adapting it into a screenplay. I don't like reading plays, or screenplays, but that's one of my all-time fave-rave movies. What are the odds Mr. G can bring home the goods in a novel set in modern times?, I asked myself, and decided to find out.

I thought this book was a re-read. I have an ancient mass-market paperback of it, after all, and also a show more book-club edition hardcover; those sound like broke kid buys. But it would seem I've never clapped eyes on so much as a para of the book before, for all the sense of recognition I had. It's very possible that I encountered the protagonist, Melvil (oof) West, and recognized the reference to Herr Dewey of the decimal system, and was put off; then encountering Mrs. West, yclept "Dido," sent the book onto the hold pile basically forever. I mean, a specialist in Greek and Roman antiquities married to a woman, born in the 1930s at the latest, named Dido was a little icky.

Whatever, I'm chill now in my latest-possible forties, I cruised past these obstacles. I almost gave up again, however, as we are guided through the soul-numbingly dull life of Dr. West, curator of Greek and Roman, and his shrill, annoying, one-dimensional future ex-wife Dido. Things don't pick up until the curveball on about p65, when Melvil decides to steal the Holy Grail.

It's a chalice, you see, in excellent preservation, made of gold and silver plate and dating from about the first century AD (as we called it then, now of course "CE"). It's just bound to cause a stir when it's unveiled, thinks Melvil...and does it ever! Everybody and his little tarantula scuttles from dark, unpleasant corners of the Universe, like the Vatican, and claims the little marvy. Melvil, in his foggy and boozed-up brain, conceives that the chalice (which he is certain is NOT the Holy Grail because there can be no such object {for unspecified reasons}) is really his because only he really cares about it for its beauty and wants to keep it safe from greedy, unscrupulous people.

So he walks out of the museum with it. Just like that. I mean, even in 1974, they had security checks and the like. C'mon, I thought, and then...let it go. Who cares about the heist, let's see where woolly-headed dullard Melvil goes...

To the airport. Where he meets the one woman in all the world who can help him spirit the chalice to England, where he plans to confront the famous, gay archaeologist who claims the chalice was stolen from him. The arrival of West and girl doesn't go unnoticed by the UK cops, but the sympathetic portrayal of the gay archaeologist and his light-o-love is the surprise for me in this section.

Oh what the hell...I hate book reports with plot diagrams and such-like...if you want to know more about the book's events, buy it and read it. Now, SHOULD you buy it? I think, on balance, yeah. It's far from as good as The Lion in Winter, but it's pretty well-written. It's not at all like the modern book trend of making sure the treasure is Fraught with Significance, it's just a supremely rare work of art and so intrinsically valuable, and that's sorta refreshing. It's a dated piece for any number of reasons, but not least is the seemingly evergreen trope of "gorgeous, rich young lady falls in love with middle-aged schmoe" played with a straight face.

But it evokes an honest man's emotional reasons for doing something dishonest, indeed criminal, and does so very well. It gives us a look at the emotional landscape of two frozen people who, for silly reasons, unfreeze each other. And those are very real events, seen in the newspapers daily, both in the stories told and in the legal notices of divorce and bankruptcy and so on.

And the twist ending is pretty darn well hidden until the end!

Recommended for anyone over 45, and for sentimentalists in general (see page 215). show less