Shakespeare’s green-eyed monster, jealousy, raises its ugly head again in The Winter’s Tale. Its destructive power is a gift for an actor, enabling him to work through his whole repertoire of emotions and techniques, ranging from initial bonhomie to suspicion, to anger, to revenge and finally to regret. There is a lot of meat there into which the able thespian can sink his teeth.
The story also, as with several other later Shakespeare plays, deals with father/daughter relationship. Although in Winter’s Tale Leontes does not have any relationship with his daughter, Perdita, or indeed meets her until she is sixteen, it is her birth that is one of the factors that kicks the whole thing off. As in Lear, the innocent daughter is banished but unlike it, and Shakespeare’s other great tragedy dealing with jealousy, Othello, The Winter’s Tale ends in redemption, resurrection and reconciliation.
Northern Broadsides made a fairly good fist of the play with some very strong performances. Director Conrad Nelson, who also played Leontes, chose to present the play in modern dress, very similar in fact to the David Haig Lear in Bath a couple of years ago. However, whereas that production had a very definite feel and style to it, this Winter’s Tale was just men in suits. The simple, white box-like set too was not over-successful, lacking any real conviction and again it was also reminiscent of another production – Peter Brooks’ famous Dream many years ago. That said, as I have already mentioned, there were excellent performances, with the ladies emerging as the clear winners.
Ruth Alexander Rubin was outstanding as the matter-of-fact, no-nonsense Paulina who nevertheless still failed to make common sense prevail, but who at least had the satisfaction of saying I told you so at the end. I also liked Andrew Whitehead as her husband Antigonus. Hannah Barrie was convincing as the wronged, hand-wringing wife Hermoine and Mike Hugo brought a lot of comic relief to the proceedings as a multi-faceted Autolycus.
As with most modern companies, all the actors are also accomplished musicians and, as expected, they all got to show off their prowess and raid the dressing-up box at the start of the second half, although the sheep-shearing celebrations perhaps went on a bit too long, with a bit of dodgy choreography and incongruous vocals.
I cannot finish without mention of the bear. While Hamlet has its iconic and anticipated “To be or not to be” and Richard III its “A horse, a horse, my kingdom. . .” The Winter’s Tale has the unusual and famous stage direction, “Exit pursued by a bear”. It is always an issue for both directors and audiences as to how this will be resolved (this production just projected a bear’s head on the back wall). I think the whole thing could be sorted very easily and the problem resolved with just the merest tweak to the direction by making it, “Exit with a bear behind”.
All in all, Northern Broadsides’ The Winter’s Tale was a satisfying and entertaining, if not exciting or original, production from this highly respected company based in Halifax. ★★★★☆ Michael Hasted 28th October 2015
