How the dark, violent medieval origins of Robin Hood were erased

The Traitor of Sherwood Forest centres on the fictional Jane, a peasant who falls for Robin Hood’s legend. She swoons over him and becomes part of his outlaw band, but begins to wonder if his heroic image and the seductive Robin himself have led her astray. Kaufman’s Robin, neither hero nor villain, is true to the character’s origins. In the ballads, she says, “He is incredibly subversive when you look at the way he goes up against people in power, like kings, like nobility, like the church. But he also, in every one of the ballads, either has a tragic end or is a victim of his own flaws.”