This is one of Shakespeare’s oddest plays. Ostensibly about jealousy and it’s consequences, it veers into fantasy, taking us to two very different locations, Sicily and Bohemia. It must be the only play ever written featuring a sheep-sheering contest, though no actual sheep appear!
They’ve performed the same play / production in both theatres separately before, but for the first time both the candlelit playhouse and the outdoor theatre are used for the same performance, one for each location, in Sean Holmes’ production. An inspired idea, even if you have to spend an hour outdoors on a cold winter night! Well, it is called A Winter’s Tale.
All seems fine in the court of Leontes in Sicily. His wife Hermione is pregnant with their second child and his best friend Polixenes is on an extended visit from Bohemia. Then he gets it into his head that his wife and his best friend have been having an affair and Polixenes has fathered the baby. His jealousy becomes all consuming. Polixenes departs to avoid murder by Leontes, who exiles the newborn child. Leontes tries Hermoine, but despite ‘evidence’ from the oracle refuses to accept her innocence. His young son dies of distress at his mother’s treatment by his father, and Hermoine soon dies herself.
In Bohemia, a shepherd and his son find the baby, taken there and left by Antigonus at Hermoine’s request. They name her Perdita, and their family bring her up as their own. Jump forward sixteen years and Polixenes’ son Florizel has fallen for Perdita, much to his father’s disappointment as a shepherd’s daughter is well below his station. They all meet at the sheep-shearing contest / festival, where they find out her true heritage and head for Sicily where they find Leontes deep in remorse. A statue of Hermoine is unveiled and comes alive, thus reuniting the family. See what I mean by odd?!
The madness which underpins Leontes’ jealousy has greater emphasis in this production. The play is famous for its stage direction ‘exit pursued by a bear’ which here has two appearances, the latter milked with an elongated exit. The shepherds festival veers a long way from Shakespeare, but with Ed Gaughan’s comic masterclass as Autolycus it’s impossible to resist. The final scene did have a particular poignancy lit by just a handful of candles.
With the trip between theatres, it does lengthen the play, particularly challenging on wooden benches partly outdoors, but I enjoyed much of the evening. Samuel Creasey continues to impress, here as the shepherd’s son, and Nadine Higgin made much of the role of Paulina. Grace Smart’s dining room design for first part was lovely. The Bohemia set was a bit ramshackle, but when lit brightly came into its own.
Productions of this play don’t come around often, and this one is well worth a visit.
Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog 