Prof. James Shapiro
English 3336y – Shakespeare II
The Winter’s Tale Review
February 25, 2000
The Winner’s Jail
Sitting in the small Tribeca theater the evening of February 25th, I leafed through the flimsy program which also served as the ticket stub. At 8:10, the lights dimmed and several actors walked onto the 20’x20’ gravel stage and began raking the rocks into a Zen garden. Ten feet above and behind them, a four-man rock band warmed up in a small loft. The singer, Eric Siegel, who later played Autolycus, announced: “This is The Winter’s Tale” and launched into a lively, pounding rock & roll song. Four actors stood on-stage taking turns holding up and discarding paper signs with the song’s lyrics. After the initial song, however, the play began and proceeded in a fairly traditional manner with only occasional contribution from the rock band.
The thirteen actors were quite competent and understood their lines well enough to play them intelligently, although Matthew Lawler’s portrayal of Polixines was somewhat lackluster. Their costumes were a mix of 20th-century styles, complete with jeans and nylon security jackets indicating the status of the king’s guards. A silver chalice, a wooden sword, a hot-water bottle, and a stuffed monkey served as the play’s only props. They used the gravel stage efficiently, initially raking it into a chessboard and in between later scenes re-raking it to suggest a courtroom and then a country dance scene. Characters also occasionally played with the rocks and the clown tripped over them; the disadvantage was the constant sound of the stones grinding underneath the actors’ feet. The stage was lit in soft blues and reds from the ceiling and the floor, always clearly delineating which character was the center of attention. There was no “backstage,” so actors sat on benches along the side walls when not on-stage, sometimes contributing sound effects such as howling winds.
The performance seemed to follow the play’s text exactly. The biggest flaw I found, which must be inherent to the play itself, was the extreme tone shift from tragic to comic halfway through it. The first half of the performance was quite serious, complete with yelling, crying, jealousy, exile, and the death of a wrongfully accused queen. Then, to signal the location and mood change, a small toy boat was pulled by a string across the stage front. After the intermission, comic scenes and characters dominated the performance, including a silly old shepherd, his clown son, a young couple in love, and the king’s brother Polixines playing golf. Things really get wild when Polixines and Camillo disguise themselves and crash the shepherd’s dance party. For the party, the rock band played a lively country tune and Eric Siegel donned a cowboy hat and headset microphone and performed a near-perfect imitation of Garth Brooks. The two halves of the play were wrapped together in the band’s final song, whose lyrics narrated the young couple’s reunion with the king and miraculously still-living queen while the actors briefly pantomimed the events.
While the rock band spiced up a few dull moments in the first half, the modern musical take was better suited to the play’s more comic second half. Ultimately, director Ryan Rilette’s attempts to energize the play with modern music and minimalist costumes and staging were entertaining but could not go beyond the play’s structural flaws.
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