Theatre@First's production of The Winter's Tale

[xiphias]

Let me start with the most critical. Any production of The Winter's Tale lives or dies on its portrayal of King Leontes. Leontes has to be someone who you can believe is so blindingly jealous that he can imagine his wife and best friend sleeping together, and then believe that everyone who tries to convince him that he's deluded is plotting against him -- someone whose jealousy edges into paranoid schizophrenia, drives him to be willing to murder his friend, execute his wife, kill his daughter. And yet, he simultaneously has to be fundamentally a good person, and a good king -- genuinely sympathetic while being monstrous.

That's a nearly impossible task.

Jason Merrill nails it.

That's partially because Merrill isn't left to carry that task by himself. Leontes is surrounded by honorable, decent people with integrity, who believe that their king is better than he shows himself. And when those characters are played believably -- played as people who are smart, perceptive, and decent -- we as the audience are willing to accept that, perhaps, their opinions might have merit. So long as Leontes is played so that such a thing COULD be possible.

It's a very difficult task, and it requires Camillo (Joshua Nicholson) and Antigonus (Doug Miller) to be spot-on, as well. Leontes' monstrosity in giving both of those men unbearable tasks is met by those characters' integrity and love of their king -- which, when done right, leaves the audience somehow believing in both the king's monstrosity and his worthiness of their love.

The set, lighting, and sound design help, too. Sicily is present as bare and austere, with harsh, cold lighting, Bohemia, in earth tones -- browns and yellows, with warm light.

And the music deserves a mention or two. We didn't buy the CD of the music Michael J Veloso wrote for it, but now I'm thinking that maybe I should have.

We've seen The Winter's Tale three times now, and two of the productions were good. And, of those two -- Actors' Shakespeare Project and Theatre@First -- I think I liked this one somewhat better.

Remaining shows:
Thursday April 30 8:00pm
Friday May 1 8:00pm
Saturday May 2 8:00pm

Unity Church of God
6 William Street, Somerville, MA 02144
$12/ticket

Comments

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Two L's in Merrill. :-) He is terrific.

If you still want a CD, I can certainly get you one.

Also: what, no mention of the hot hot Jewish shepherdesses? ;-)
And what production did you see that *wasn't* good?

[kightp.livejournal.com]

An intelligent and well-written review - makes me wish I could see the production!

The thing about characters (and people) who do monstrous things is that *they* often (usually) see themselves as good, decent people responding as best they can to circumstances. When an actor plays that, I find it *much* more interesting than when he/she only goes for the slavering evil notes.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Typo fixed. The problem seemed to be that the lowercase "i" in the font I type in looks unfortunately similar to a lowercase "l", so my eye just missed that.

Yes, there were hawt shepherdesses. But, y'know, I figured that was self-evident by looking at the cast list, so I didn't bother mentioning it.

Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, I belive it is, does a travelling Shakespeare production every year, and they brought Winter's Tale to MIT, I think it was.

They decided to set Bohemia in Alice in Wonderland, with Shepherd and Clown as the March Hare and the Mad Hatter. And the Bear in "exit pursued by a . . . " as a young woman dressed as a teddy bear.

At the intermission, we had to explain to the people sitting around us what had just happened -- that the ship had sunk, Antigonus was killed and eaten by a bear after reluctantly abandoning the baby, that the baby was found by the Shepherd who had saved it.

Because none of that was clear from the performance.

If you have decided to go for so much humor that the audience can't figure out what the hell just happened, and it's vital to the plot -- you've pretty much screwed up.

The one bright spot was their Autolycus, who LITERALLY held the audience hostage at one point. He was playing banjo, and he explained that he was busking, and he wasn't going to leave the stage until people threw money at him.

He made about fifteen bucks.

But, yeah -- it's pretty sad when the only parts of the performance that really work are improv bits done, as we found out later, to fill out time because they were having a problem backstage that held up run-time.

[candle-light.livejournal.com]

That was an excellent review. Thank you. Also, on a personal note, I'm glad you enjoyed it because that was my son playing Mamillius last night. :-)

[gilana]

FYI, the shepherdesses' trio with Autolycus is not on the CD. Of course, that may make you *more* likely to buy it... :)

Thanks for the glowing review, and sorry I didn't get to see you there!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yup. I WAS thinking of saying something along the lines of "Isaac Richman played an emotionally perceptive and intelligent Mamillius who deeply loves his parents, but, y'know, then, that was a pretty natural role for him."

But I thought that would be pandering.

[spatch]

They decided to set Bohemia in Alice in Wonderland, with Shepherd and Clown as the March Hare and the Mad Hatter. And the Bear in "exit pursued by a . . . " as a young woman dressed as a teddy bear.

That's, um.

Counterproductive.

How, pray tell, did they set Sicilia? Straightforward, or was there a storybook twist to it as well?!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I don't actually remember.

[redbird]

How long does this production run? Or, more to the point, what time would I expect to leave the theatre? (The difference being, if it's n hours plus k intermissions, it matters how long the intermissions are and what time the curtain actually goes up.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Long. It's three hours plus a fifteen minute intermission. Expect to leave 11 to 11:30 or so.