Feature: THE WINTER'S TALE at The Oasis Theatre Company

One of Shakespeare's lesser performed (but no less beloved) plays, The Winter's Tale defies easy categorization. Its mix of intense psychological drama and pastoral comedy has led to it generally being considered a late romance, though it is sometimes categorized as a problem play. The Winter's Tale also includes a powerful ending that has confounded audiences and scholars since its debut (a "winter's tale" in Shakespeare's time would have indicated a sort of fantastic and entertaining story [a fairy tale, almost] to pass the time on a cold winter's night, and realism was not generally a requirement thereof).

Director Brenda Lynn Bynum has chosen to ground her production of The Winter's Tale by setting it in 1955 against a backdrop of McCarthyism, saying that she sees parallels between the unfounded accusations of that era and the accusations of infidelity the paranoid King Leontes (Vaughn Irving) makes against his honorable wife, Hermione (Sarah Runyan), and his best friend, Bohemian King Polixenes (Alexander Shicoff). After Leontes' charges lead to tragedy at the end of the third act, the play picks back up sixteen years later in Bohemia (in the Oasis production, "Bohemia" is a 1970's hippie commune), where it may not be too late to right some of Leontes's wrongs.

The Winter's Tale features a multigenerational cast of talented Santa Fe and Albuquerque actors, including Miles Blitch, Eibhlin Brennan, Kathi Collins, Joey Beth Gilbert, James Jenner, Abram Klaassen, Anika Heinonen, Howard Miller, Yannig Morin, Steven Oakey, and Noah Segard, in addition to Irving, Shicoff, and Runyan. The production is stage managed by Heather Campbell.

The Winter's Tale runs Thursday-Sunday from January 31st through February 17th. Tickets may be purchased by phone at 917-439-7708, at the door, or online at https://www.theoasistheatre.com/shop/uncle-vanya-c3n38-ktmnw. The first week (January 31st through February 3rd), tickets are only $15. The second and third weekends, they go up to the standard price of $25.