Have you ever wondered if there’s another family out there as discreetly dysfunctional as yours … try the royal family of England back in barbaric times. Mom’s locked up in the dungeon, Dad’s eloping with a teenager who was abducted from the French royal family at age 7, all the while the three brothers are sparring over who will inherit dad’s throne.
That madness is all played out at a family Christmas get together in James Goldman’s 1966 work called “The Lion in Winter” — which will be performed by the Bremerton Community Theatre players starting at 8 p.m. this Friday.
Though the present day is nearly 1,000 years after the play’s setting and it’s nowhere near Christmas time, those details are minute in scope compared to the inter-family relationships that should evoke laughter, contempt, pity and even a bit of encouragement, players said.
“It’s an entire family tearing each other apart, and if you can find the humor in that … then you can find the humor in this story,” said cast member Raymond Deuel who is playing the strong willed part of Prince Richard.
Deuel likened the play’s comedic value to overhearing another family or couple quarrel, then realizing and laughing at the ridiculousness of one’s own bickering.
The story is set during Christmas 1183 at the Plantagenet family fortress just as Eleanor of Aquitaine — played by Diana Liljelund — is released from prison by her husband Henry II, King of England — Charlie Birdsell — for the holiday, presumably.
“You think about our era … Eleanor was 15 when she became queen,” Liljelund said.
“I’m 50, and I’m the oldest man I know,” Birdsell said in his stage voice.
Being so old, the king is beginning to contemplate which of his sons will be best fit to sustain and further his empire. But essentially it comes down to a game of favorites.
Henry wants the youngest son John, while he’s sure Eleanor would choose the elder Richard.
Casey Cline (John) and Deuel (Richard) play youthful ignorance and big brother arrogance quite well, while Adam Matthew displays the perfect “I don’t care” attitude front as the middle child, Geoffrey.
“When everyone thinks of crowns, no one ever speaks of Geoff,” he says in the play. “It’s not the power I feel deprived of, it’s the mention that I miss.”
The power, however, is the overriding factor and focal point throughout the entire tale. What sets off most of the funny and quirky nuances that make this play a comedy are driven by that quest for power — for good or ill.
What makes it worth seeing is the relationships between the characters along the journey, the chemistry of the BCT cast which emphasizes those characters and the director — Nancy Grant — who has evoked it from them.
Bob Montgomery, now a set designer and former actor/director who has been helping produce shows at BCT since its inception said Grant is one of the best directors the theatre has ever seen.
And the actors agree.
“When you do enough shows, there’s a lot of directors who will just let you go,” Deuel said.
But not Grant, she’s all about jazzing things up.
“Nancy keeps saying to me, ‘You need to be more wicked,’” Liljelund said.
Eleanor’s wickedness is infuriated by Henry the Second’s brazen king-itus and soothed by the love she feels — yet hides from — for her three sons.
The story is played out almost like a grand-scale modern day sitcom. “The Lion and Winter” was also an Academy Award-winning movie starring Peter Oítoole and Katherine Hepburn in 1968, redone in 2003 without award.
BCT’s production of “The Lion and Winter” debuts at 8 p.m. June 8 and will run at the same time Fridays and Saturdays with 2:30 p.m. matinees on Sundays through July 1 at the Bremerton Community Theatre at 599 Lebo Blvd. in Bremerton. Tickets are $10 adults/$9 seniors and students/$7 children under 12. Info: www.bremertoncommunitytheatre.org or call (360) 863-1706.
