Review - The Winter's Tale: Exit, Pursued by a Shadow Puppet

What a difference sixteen years can make. A toddler can become a voter, an innovation can become a cliché and, in the case of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, a tense drama can turn into fluff romantic comedy.

Divided by that amount of time into two very different parts, The Winter's Tale is a play that seems to be in search of its own personality. Director Michael Grief and his talented company make an admirable go at tackling this problematic text, and the production does feature some attention-grabbing elements and enjoyable performances but the pieces never coalesce into a satisfying whole.

The first three of the five acts are dominated by the jealous rages of King Leontes of Sicilia (Ruben Santiago-Hudson), who suspects, on the thinnest of circumstances, that his wife Hermione (Linda Emond) has been cheating with his best friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia (Jesse L. Martin), to the point where he insists that the baby she carried has been fathered by his fellow king. Though a fine actor, Santiago-Hudson has his work cut out for him here, trying to dig up a reasonably motivated human being from the text, but the resulting rants are disappointingly lacking in variety and depth. The earlier acts' better moments are supplied by Martin, who cam charm at will and also makes fine use of his character's own raging moments, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Paulina, the fiery defender of the queen's innocence.

The banished infant girl named Perdita (Heather Lind, once she turns sixteen) is raised by a bumbling Bohemian shepherd (Max Wright, who excels in bumbling roles) and his dimwit son (Jesse Tyler Ferguson). The thick comic chemistry in a scene between Ferguson and Hamish Linklater, as a roughish peddler who steals all his wares, supplies a hilarious highlight.

Perdita and Polixenes' son, Florizel (Francois Battiste), are in love but the Bohemian king objects to his heir marrying a common shepherd's daughter until... well, you know where this is going.

If Shakespeare doesn't quite deliver one of his better efforts this time around, Greif & Co. work up a production with some enchanting qualities. Nothing obstructs the lovely Central Park background in Mark Wendland's minimal set, which effectively features a long wall of glass panels. Clint Ramos' colorful costumes suggest a Middle-Eastern locale, as does the exceptional musical score by Tom Kitt, which varies in styles from jauntily hip to darkly moody when underscoring lengthy dramatic monologues. Lake Simons' puppetry representing animals and birds has its charms, though the effect relating to Shakespeare's most famous stage direction, "Exit, pursued by a bear," is a disappointment. Still, the gang does get a lot of comic mileage out of a flock of sheep.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Linda Emond, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and Jesse L. Martin; Bottom: Hamish Linklater and Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

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"Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun."

-- Noel Coward

The grosses are out for the week ending 7/4/2010 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: NEXT FALL (25.5%), RACE (11.1%), LEND ME A TENOR (11.0%), SOUTH PACIFIC (8.5%), ROCK OF AGES (2.9%), FENCES (0.1%),

Down for the week was: IN THE HEIGHTS (-12.8%), AMERICAN IDIOT (-12.1%), THE ADDAMS FAMILY (-11.7%), COME FLY AWAY (-11.6%), MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET (-10.7%), CHICAGO (-8.3%), WEST SIDE STORY (-7.4%), JERSEY BOYS (-6.0%), MEMPHIS (-4.9%), PROMISES, PROMISES (-4.8%), FELA! (-4.3%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-3.5%), LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (-2.1%), MAMMA MIA! (-1.6%), MARY POPPINS (-1.6%), NEXT TO NORMAL (-0.6%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (-0.5%), EVERYDAY RAPTURE (-0.1%), THE LION KING (-0.1%),