The Winter’s Tale - 1920s Style

Posted on July 20, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized |

On Tuesday of this week, I saw the Winter’s Tale at the River City Shakespeare Festival. This particular production is set in the early days of Mussolini’s Italy. This setting is actually incredibly fitting for the play, at least during the tragic first half. During the second half, when things get much comedic and pastoral, it almost feels like it’s talking place in a very different time period.

The Winter’s Tale is a little different from most of Shakespeare’s plays, in that it seems to switch from a tragedy to a comedy at about the halfway mark. Every thing before Exit, pursued by a bear is tragic[1]. Everything after that is comic. Because of this, it’s sometimes considered one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, which is probably why it isn’t staged more often.

I’m glad the the Free Will Players decided to stage this production, though, because I much preferred it to the production of Two Gentlemen of Verona that I saw last week. Even though the cast is consists of the same actors, some of the better actors in the company are given larger roles than they are in the other play (this may have been due to signing talents, or it may simply be their way of giving everyone a chance at a substantial role during the season).

The acting, overall, is incredible. John Wright–who is easily one of the city’s best Shakespearean actors–brings the pain and tragedy of Leontes to life in a way that manages to be both animated and subtle.

The one thing that did stand out is the fact that, given the time period in which this particular production was set, we are presented with a group of modern, presumably rational people, consulting the Oracle at Delphi. This is easy to overlook, of course, but it does provide a bit of unintentional humour in the otherwise dark and tragic first half of the play.

*****

[1] Speaking of which, there was no bear! Instead, Antigonus is chased off set by a bunch of woman wielding sticks (who are, I think, supposed to represent the storm, or the Fates, or…something), followed by a load roar on the PA.

Comments

Leave a Reply