Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...For a devastating portrait of what we now euphemistically call middle age, head down to Court Theatre and see "The Lion in Winter," a cheerfully anachronistic play famously made into a film starring Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole and once aptly described as a 12th century version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?""
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Tolstoy famously wrote that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Singular though each fraught family is, few are as entertaining as the 12th century tribe of British royals at the ruthless, provocative and wickedly funny heart of playwright James Goldman’s 1966 play “The Lion in Winter.”"
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...Fortunately, director Ron OJ Parson slices right through that surface to reveal the universal components of the battle between Henry II and his imprisoned wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, over who will inherit the throne. As they and their sons plot and spar, we see every family with something to fight over and lose, from Medea to King Lear to Succession."
Let's Play Theatrical Reviews - Recommended
"...The Lion in Winter influenced other works, such as the popular TV show Empire. Lee Daniels also acknowledges that the soap opera Dynasty was a strong influence. It's a testament to the play's lasting impact and its portrayal of family dynamics and power struggles that still resonate with audiences today. The ending remains unresolved despite all the manipulations and schemes. Queen Eleanor's imprisonment, the ongoing fight between the three princes, and King Henry II's indecisiveness on his successor create a stalemate that mirrors the beginning of the play."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...“The Lion in Winter” by James Goldman is a historical pageant: a story about Henry II, King of England (John Hoogenakker), who learns that life’s struggle to find paradise on earth is elusive—and that he must lay the groundwork to choose his successor. While the performance is held together by Hoogenakker’s fine acting, it is Henry’s articulate give-and-take that audience members will remember most when watching this snappy play with humorous barbs in modern vernacular."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...James Goldman’s twelfth century historic comic-drama depicts a life-and-death struggle between King Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their three resentful sons. But fear not: this isn’t Shakespeare. Goldman’s play is purposely anachronistic, making it feel completely contemporary. The playwright penned his play to seem like a dark, contemporary-sounding drawing room comedy about, you know, a typical family struggling for absolute power. After one of the many knockdown drag out fights, Queen Eleanor quips, “Well, what family doesn’t have its ups and downs?” You might imagine a production that’s similar to Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” but with a few more characters and performed in Medieval drag."
Rescripted - Highly Recommended
"...The Lion in Winter is as deceptively hilarious as it is cruel. I found myself cracking up at particularly hurtful insults, and laughing unexpectedly when I realized a character was joking about a circumstance that would usually be life or death. It has that wonderful thing that plays from the 1960s really nailed: a group of people with inextricable ties, trapped in a room for a short amount of time, causing each other as much pain as possible over a holiday meal or dinner party."
Buzznews.net - Highly Recommended
"...I came expecting a serious melodrama centered on the complex interpersonal relationships of Henry’s tattered family, and so was pleasantly surprised to find myself laughing along with the rest of the audience at the sarcastic jabs, verbal taunting, and what in the skilled hands of Director and Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson, was the almost comically inept plotting by the three sons. Despite a play whose main source of action is based on dialogue, I found the performance fast paced and was completely drawn into what was happening on the stage. You didn’t want to miss a word of the verbal potshots being landed right and left between those on stage."
Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended
"...Spend more than 30 seconds engaging with contemporary American culture, and you’ll be reminded that we live in a particularly fractious time. Much of our current political strife derives from the conflict between a sclerotic, aging ruling class that refuses to cede an iota of its power and the increasing desperation of the younger generations it tries to control. Appropriately, then, the Court Theatre’s clear-eyed new production of James Goldman’s venerable play The Lion in Winter allows the audience to draw these parallels between our present madness and similar machinations and travails of a medieval English royal family."
Life and Times - Highly Recommended
"...“The Lion in Winter” at Court Theatre is a wonderful interpretation of one of the best-written dramas in rotation. It is a show that is not overdone, and thus can be quite impressive when put on stage by a talented director like Ron OJ Parson with an exceptional cast and the backstage talents of one of Chicago’s most respected theatrical institutions to bring his vision to life."
Chicago Culture Authority - Recommended
"...This fraught holiday gathering (which didn’t actually take place) is the focus of James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter at the Court Theatre, directed by Ron OJ Parson with an eye toward highlighting the story’s modern relevance, an effort which largely succeeds. He does this by, for instance, having the actors deliver their lines in unaccented English as they go about such familiar Christmas preparations as hanging coniferous boughs, drinking spiced wine and even, in Alais’ case, singing a carol."
NewCity Chicago - Recommended
"...“The Lion in Winter” is one of my favorite movies, but the script is showing its age—like a kitchen with avocado-green appliances. It seems to be trying to be both “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and Shakespeare and manages neither. Some of its lines fall flat, as when Henry jokes “Well, what shall we hang—the holly or each other?” or “The sky is pocked with stars.” It’s hard to imagine an actual human saying something like that. But some are wonderful—as when Eleanor tells Henry “I can peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice.” It’s kitschy and bitchy and fun—a historic soap opera, not to be taken too seriously as history or literature."
