THE WINTER'S TALE

25/7/09, Old Vic

3hrs. Simon Russell Beale as Leontes, Rebecca Hall as Hermione, Ethan Hawke as Autolycus. Sam Mendes directed. Part of the "The Bridge", a scheme to mount six productions with a single company of British and American actors on Broadway, on tour and at the Vic. This first effort plays in rep with Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, which we aren't planning to see.

Simon Russell Beale as ever mesmerising. What that man can do with a silence! There's a moment in the latter part of this play where he sees his daughter Perdita for the first time since she was abandoned as a newborn. He doesn't know it's her. He says nothing but simply looks at her, and manages somehow to convey recognition, astonishment, doubt, love, disbelief, guilt... The production was worth seeing for that moment alone. It brought tears to the eyes. And of course he speaks the verse, including some of Shakespeare's thorniest constructions, as if new-minted dialogue, excavating the meaning (not perhaps always what Shakespeare intended, but none the worse for that) and making it crystal clear.

Hawke played Autolycus as an itinerant country and western ballad singer with guitar. It worked surprisingly well: the shepherds' harvest feast became a hoe-down. He made the characters' nonsense songs sound plausible. And there were some funny jokes. The costumes placed the production at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; the Americans played the Bohemians, the Brits the Sicilians.

Rebecca Hall was unconvincing as Hermione (too young, frankly), Sinead Cusack was brilliant as Paulina, the older woman who reads Leontes the riot act over his treatment of his wife and then squirrels the supposedly dead Hermione away for 16 years until revealing her as a statue on the occasion of her daughter's return. Which has to be almost as unlikely a plot development as the murder of the courtier who abandons the infant Perdita, only to be torn limb from limb by a bear. The bear was well-handled: there was the inevitable laugh, but the creature was scary enough -- a man in a bear costume prowling menacingly in the half-dark. In the end there was no "Exit, pursued by a bear", just a slash of lightning, the bear rears up, then blackout. But why, one wonders, did Shakespeare specify a bear? Scary, sure. You only had to pop down the road to the bear-baiting to see how scary. But a trifle too exotic? Perhaps someone had given the company a bear skin and they were looking for some way to use it.

The statue coming to life was handled well. Hermione stood on a dais downstage with her back to the audience, the other characters in a semi-circle facing her (and us). When she came to life it was as though she were waking from a trance.

The Vic stage had been remodelled, with a forestage (lower than the main stage) in front of the proscenium and a sloping playing area linking main and fore stages.

Clever lighting. There was much use of bright white spotlights (though more diffuse than a conventional follow spot), which illuminated characters during soliloquies (it might have been over the top but actually worked fine); great geometrical slabs of light on the floor at certain points like the opening of the final section, when Leontes and friends sit disconsolate in a great cathedral-like space conjured up by lighting alone; and when Hermione reanimated the gloom lifted... on Perdita before the others.

The play remains fundamentally implausible. Apart from the bear and the statue, Leontes' jealousy at the start is simply a given: there's no Othello-like development or explanation for his condition. His emotions seem irrational -- though his brother Polixenes' fury when he sees his son proposing to Perdita seems equally over the top and implies that irrational mood swings may be a family failing.

It's a play that shows the fragility of the things we love and depend on -- even if, in this romance, they are (mostly) restored.

THE WINTER'S TALE

27/6/09, RSC (Courtyard, Stratford)

Written by Penelope
The Winter's Tale is the one with the bear, and the most famous stage instruction of all time: "Exit, pursued by a bear". It's not the easiest scene to pull off: real bears aren't plentiful in Warwickshire these days and men in large brown costumes can look absurd. But the best thing about this RSC production is its design. Designers don't often get a mention, but Jon Bausor has got to the heart of the play with his clever use of both set and costumes. His bear is a kind of large puppet operated by two men which engulfs the unfortunate Antigonus.

The play opens in Leontes' lavish palace where a banquet is starting. The set is gorgeous. The table is laden with food and candles and the room is surrounded by skyscraper-high bookshelves.

I must admit that the key moment in the play is baffling to me. Why does Leontes manage to persuade himself that his loving and hugely pregnant wife, Hermione, is being unfaithful to him because she does exactly as he asks her, and persuades Polixenes to stay in their house longer? His misconception and jealous rage cause much of the subsequent tragedy in which Hermione and their son die, and his daughter is lost to a shepherd. And Shakespeare doesn't help us out very much with an explanation.

The play proceeds with great pace. Greg Hicks as Leontes is by turns affectionate, irrational and repentant, with a good deal of self-pity thrown in. It's a good performance. He's described as a tyrant several times and Hicks achieves this, without you losing all sympathy for him later on when he gets his second chance. Hermione's role isn't huge, but Kelly Hunter pulls off being tragically misunderstood without being a total victim, which can't be easy. For me, one of the strongest performances was Noma Dumezweni as Paulina. She has a strong, clear voice and gives great passion and meaning to the verse. Her honesty and integrity are crucial to Leontes' realisation that he was wrong. Samantha Young as Perdita is both acrobatic and girlish, she portrays the comedy and tragedy of her role with aplomb.

But back to the design. The costumes are beautiful: smart suits, uniforms, rags, dancing sheep, the aforementioned bear and travelling musicians all look great. The first half ends with Leontes' realisation of his mistake and as he says "come and lead me unto these sorrows", the bookshelves collapse around him and every single book lands with a thud on the stage and papers swirl into the stalls. It's really effective and dramatic.

I've been to the Globe but this was my first time seeing a production in Stratford and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Having the audience on three sides, with the musicians above the stage does allow you to see Shakespeare more as he intended than many of the London theatres can achieve.