The Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s production is a strikingly good adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s more convoluted plots
Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is a little bit of an outlier in the canon and not as often performed as many others. Known both as one of the “late romances” and as one of the “problem plays,” it’s not quite a comedy — although it has plenty of laughs — and not completely tragic despite some seriously awful occurrences.
In short, it’s a bumper-car plot that’s tough to follow in places, but this new production at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival directed by Wendy Franz does a really nice job of bringing out the best in one of the Bard’s later works. She’s aided by a super-excellent cast (pardon the nerdy literary term there) comprised of a great many familiar Colorado actors and a few out-of-towners.
At the center of the plot is the suspicion by the King of Sicilia, Leontes (Josh Innerst) that his good buddy Polixenes (Stephen Tyrone Williams), a visiting king from Bohemia, is shagging his wife, Queen Hermione (Emily Van Fleet). His unfounded jealousy goes from 0-60 in short order, and there’s some serious suspension of disbelief that he could be driven quite so mad with no evidence whatsoever that adultery is taking place (it’s not). Before long, Polixenes is marked for death, with the king’s courtier Camillo (Matthew Schneck) ordered to commit the regicide with poison.
Camillo thinks Leontes is off his rocker, tells Polixenes what’s up and the two beat it back to Bohemia under cover of darkness before the mad king can come up with a Plan B. Leontes takes their flight as proof of his suspicion and throws the very-pregnant Hermione in prison despite an impassioned rebuttal beautifully played by Van Fleet.
His two other long-time courtiers Antigonus (Coleman Zeigen) and another lord played by Mark Ragan — cannot convince him he’s nuts to follow this crazed path. Even Hermione’s BFF and wife to Antigonus Paulina (Noelia Antweiler) cannot sway him, although she gives it her all. Antweiler really brings it with this character, blasting Leontes with a fusillade of recriminations — all true — about what a jerk he’s being and foretelling his ultimate shame when he learns of how very wrong he’s been.
A highly reliable actor on numerous Colorado stages in recent years, Antweiler also handles some of the expository bits of the script, including a scene at the top of the second act where she enters in an extraordinary gown of all white (kudos to costume designer Clare Henkel) with arm extensions that allow her to be much bigger than life.
Innerst, too, is at the top of his game, successfully pivoting between Leontes’ towering assholery with a sympathetic side that almost suggests his mind has been taken over by some sort of sickness.
Before long, Hermione is dead and so is their older son Mamillius (Marisa Dinsmoor) — struck down by lightning after Leontes refuses to believe a proclamation from the Oracle at Delphi that his wife is innocent. Antigonus gets the supremely shitty assignment to abandon the baby on the shores of Bohemia, after which he is immediately killed by a bear.
Got all that?
The baby is found by a shepherd (typically wonderful Leslie O’Carroll) and her son (comically sweet Brian Bohlender) and they’re stoked that, along with the kid in the basket, Antigonus left a little bag of gold to help raise her. They name the baby Perdita and 16 years pass.
Powerful production
While the plot may be a bit daft, the staging of this production is nothing but deliberate. Franz imagines it all as a fairytale of sorts, and dresses the characters accordingly in all manner of fun and fanciful costumes. The lighting by Stephen C. Jones leans toward blacks and grays and nicely supports the dark themes undergirding much of the action. There’s also some very nice use of music both as background and to accompany some singing bits — courtesy of sound designer Max Silverman and music director Tim Orr (who’s also the CSF’s producing artistic director). Choreographer Erika Randall combines ethereal movement in some places with full-cast courtly dances in others, with a delightful effect of continuous, flowing movement from scene to scene.
The show also features some nice breakout performances, in particular that of Jacob Dresch, who plays a wacky character named Autolycus. A former servant to Florizel (son of Polixenes and suitor of Perdita played by Christian Robinson Ray Robinson) Autolycus is some sort of full-time rogue who pinches purses while singing silly songs and winking and mugging his way through a series of highly amusing scenes in the second act. It may not be entirely clear why he’s part of the action, but if nothing else he provides some good comic relief and Dresch creates one of the most memorable characters in the entire show.
Also notable are Schneck as the caught-in-the-middle courtier Camillo, Zeigen as the tormented Antigonus and Mark Ragan, another courtier who also plays a servant to the shepherd and has one of the most high-speed entrances in recent theatre memory to spill some news.
After all the back and forth, this one has a mostly happy ending. Perdita (Edie Roth) and Florizel eventually end up together, the two kings reconcile and there’s one other big surprise at the end that may seem ridiculous but that adds to the overall good feeling at show’s end.
It would have been great to see this one in the outdoor Mary Rippon Theatre on the CU campus other than the indoor Roe Green theatre, but perhaps the lighting and sound design would have been impacted doing so. As it stands, it’s a somewhat rare opportunity to see The Winter’s Tale in a dynamic and lovingly directed and performed production with a bang-up cast that teases every ounce of emotion from the script. Try not to miss it!
Leave A Comment