The WINTER'S TALE at Covent Garden - Don't Send In The Clowns...

For the third time in four months we saw Shakespeare's THE WINTER'S TALE only this time dancers peopled the gloomy court of King Leontes in Sicillia and the sunny fields of neighbouring Bohemia as we saw Christopher Wheeldon's Royal Ballet production.

Shakespeare's tragi-comedy is one that I enjoy a lot but how can a production of it be a success with the loss of his words?  Quite easily. Constant Reader, when you have a choreographer of Wheeldon's talent who, rather than doing a scene-for-scene transposing, instead conjures up the mood and the feelings behind the words.

By turn thrilling and emotional, Wheeldon is to be applauded for dropping the lengthy rude mechanicals comedy characters from the Bohemia scenes, instead the second act concentrates on a lengthy pas-de-deux between the young lovers Perdita and Florizel. As I said, what is remarkable about the production is that with no words to concentrate on, Wheeldon can instead focus on the emotions that drive Shakespeare's story and can linger on certain moments that are overlooked in the rush of words.

Christopher Wheeldon provides a prologue showing Leontes and Polixenis as young friends, separated when they become the rulers of Sicillia and Bohemia only to be reunited as adults with Leontes' wife Hermione.  When Polixenes cancels his return to Bohemia because Hermione asks him to, Leontes is thrown into a jealous rage suspecting them of having an affair, which Wheeldon choreographs in a fascinating scene where Leontes clambers over the court sculptures to spy on the couple, who he imagines making love.

Polixenes flees but Leontes has Hermione arrested and put on trial. Witnessing his mother's trial, Prince Mamillius collapses and dies which causes Hermione to collapse too. Her chief supporter Paulina announces the Queen is dead and Leontes finally is confronted by the disastrous consequences of his misguided jealousy. Paulina's husband Antigonus is killed when he leaves Hermione's recently-born baby daughter to die on the shores of Bohemia and the baby is adopted by a shepherd - and all of that in the first half!

Wheeldon's choreography was remarkably involving and he was also helped enormously by the ominous design of Sicillia's court by Bob Crowley and the atmospheric lighting of Natasha Katz. Joby Talbot's score was also very fine, particularly stark and sombre as Leontes' jealous madness takes hold only to blossom into lyricism for the second act when we see the grown-up daughter Perdita falling in love with Florizel, the son of Polixenes.  Again Bob Crowley's setting of a large tree was quite marvellous.

Most of the conclusion in Shakespeare's play frustratingly happens offstage but Wheeldon has the reunion between Leontes and Perdita happen onstage when he recognizes his wife's pendant that was left with her as a baby.  Of course what was lost in the climax was Shakespeare's wonderful poetry when Leontes is confronted with a statue of Hermione 'coming to life' - one line that always gets me is Leontes' "O she's warm" when he touches his wife's arm - but the gentle lyricism of Wheeldon's choreography went some way to making up for this.

In fact Wheldon's final moments provided a touching coda that is not found in the original play: Crowley's design for Hermione's plinth has her standing with a figure of her son Mamillius and, as Hermione and Perdita left the stage to get to know each other after their lives apart, Leontes eagerly touched the statue of his son hoping for 'magic' to happen twice... only to be led away by Paulina as if to say "No your son *is* dead" and as the King left with his thoughts, Paulina bowed down in memory of the lost Prince.  Quite lovely and enhancing Shakespeare's plot rather than ruining it.

The lead dancers all gave excellent performances while never losing the feel of a dedicated company: Bennet Gartside as Leontes, Marianela Nunez (so good previously in Wheeldon's AFTER THE RAIN and GISELLE) as a noble Hermione and, in, particular Itziar Mendizabel was wonderful as Paulina, expressing aching grief with every movement.  It was good to see her again so quickly after her impressive featured role in GISELLE. Special mention too for Beatriz Stix-Brunell and Vadim Muntagirov as Perdita and Florizel in their lengthy second act pas-de-deux.

A worthy addition to any ballet fan's repertoire and a credible choice as the nearest related-production seen before the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

The WINTER'S TALE at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

In April I will be seeing the Royal Ballet's production of THE WINTER'S TALE at Covent Garden.  It's nice to know that I will not have to speed read the synopsis before it starts as I am now a bit familiar with the story having seen it twice in four months!  First Kenneth Branagh's production at the Garrick before Christmas and now the new production at the Globe's Sam Wanamaker Playhouse Theatre.

As usual with the Wanamaker Playhouse, it's intimate space made the play more involving and allowed for a more subtle playing style from some of the actors.  Our 2nd tier seats were facing the stage so nothing was missed apart from when they lowered the six candle chandeliers above the stage so all you could mostly see was the actors legs.

However the biggest literal pain was the bench seating... it absolutely beggars belief that this theatre that opened only two years ago was built with such uncomfortable seating,  No doubt the Playhouse would say they were keeping to the Jacobean style of theatre. But then I am sure the Jacobean back stage area did not have showers and toilets.  Think on...

So, here I was again in the court of the King of Sicilia Leontes and his wife Hermione who have both enjoyed a lengthy visit from his childhood friend Polixenes, the King of Bohemia.  One night Leontes is overcome with an irrational jealousy and accuses Hermoine and Polixenes of adultery much to their astonishment which results in Hermione arrested and Polixenes fleeing with the courtier who Leontes sent to kill him. Despite the pleadings of Paulina on her behalf, Hermione is put on trial and is not allowed to see either her young son or the baby girl she has just given birth to. Leontes has sent word to the Oracle to judge Hermione's guilt but is angered when his messengers return with the news that the Oracle has declared his Queen is innocent.

As Leontes remonstrates against the Oracle's decision, word arrives that his young son has died and Hermione collapses with grief.  Leontes slowly realizes his jealousy was wrong and this is compounded when Paulina announces that Hermione is died.  Too late too for Antigonous, Paulina's husband, who had been told by Leontes to take his baby daughter to a far-off shore and lose her there.  Antigonus does this but is killed by a bear while carrying it out.  The baby girl is found by an old shepherd and his son who adopt her.

It all makes for a fast-paced and claustrophobic first act as Leontes irrational feelings bring disaster to his court.  Sadly the second act moves 16 years later and relocates the action to Bohemia and the lost daughter now named Perdita who has caught the eye of Prince Florizel, son of Polixenes.  No matter what production I see of this play, this is usually where I check out mentally: after the delicious sturm und drang of Leontes' festering jealousy, the bucolic hey-nonny-nonny of Perdita and Florizel's simpering allied to the extended laborious comedy of Autolycus the pickpocket stealing from the shepherds just goes on and on and on. And on.

Luckily it's Polixenes' turn to spit his royal dummy and forbids Florizel from marrying Perdita.  They high-tail it to Sicilia but are pursued by Polixenes who arrives just as they are presented to Leontes.  What follows s a scene of such staggering literary cheek that Shakespeare has the good grace to do it all offstage - Perdita's real identity is discovered, the shepherds are rewarded, and father and daughter are reunited... but Paulina still has an ace to play which gives the play it's famous denouement.

After the fussiness of Branagh's production, Michael Longhurst's production was refreshingly direct and concentrated, the Wanamaker's stage design was also the perfect setting for the reveal of Hermione's statue, its centre doors proving a natural grotto.  The candlelight was very effective as usual, especially after the death of Antigonus when the auditorium was plunged into complete darkness for a few moments before the shepherd's lanterns were seen.

After Branagh's rather showy Leontes, John Light was suitably moody and tormented which felt more of an ensemble performance as did Niamh Cusack's Paulina, suitably impassioned when she needed to be but not as barnstorming as Judi Dench or Deborah Findlay at the National Theatre in 2001.  For me the performance of the evening was Rachael Stirling's Hermione, a role usually played as a trembling twit but Stirling was marvelously resolute and strong.  Her playing of the final scene was also beautifully pitched and all the more moving for that.  Echoes of her mum Diana Rigg were very strong!

There was also good support from Dennis Herdman as the dim younger shepherd, and Steffan Donnelly & Tia Bannon as the young lovers Florizel and Perdita.  I had wondered aloud if Owen thought that there might be a jig at the end of the show and, sure enough, there was, a courtly pavane with waggly hands that added precious little to the show.  Along with the benches, the after-show dance is something the Wanamaker could possibly 86...

THE WINTER'S TALE / HARLEQUINADE / ALL ON HER OWN - Branagh's bunch at The Garrick

It has been much anticipated but now Kenneth Branagh's year-long season at the Garrick Theatre has started in an eclectic season which includes two Shakespeares and those old enemies Terence Rattigan and John Osborne sharing the Branagh banner too.  Oddly enough, Osborne was much on my mind when I saw the Rattigan but more of that later.

Let us start with the positives - for the most part THE WINTER'S TALE is a successful production which is co-directed by Branagh and Rob Ashford.  I last saw it in the rather under-par Sam Mendes/Old Vic 2009 production which, although boasting excellent performances from Simon Russell Beale as Leontes and Sinead Cusack as Paulina, disappointed in the large yokel scene which takes up most of the second act.

And guess what?  Again I found the Bohemia scenes to be wearing - the scenes of Autolycus gulling the shepherds just seems to go on and on plus the wimpy romance of Florizel and Perdita - yeesh, get me back to the tortured halls of Leontes' miserable Sicilian castle any time.  Not that there is anything particularly Italian about Christopher Oram's Edwardian court set.

Leontes' sudden, creeping jealousy of his pregnant wife Hermione and his lifelong friend Polixenes should seemingly swell out of nowhere and Kenneth Branagh certainly did that.  I have seen him several times onstage since the 1980s and I constantly felt he was somewhat over-praised.  Yes he was good but always felt that maybe in a few years he would be the real deal.  Maybe now he has arrived (for Shakespeare at least).

Leontes' jealousy lasts as long as he tells himself he is jealous, when confronted with the sudden death of his son he collapses under the weight of his own guilt which is compounded when he is told that his wife has died.  Instrumental in this news is Paulina, Hermione's devoted companion played here with blazing conviction by Dame Judi Dench.

The character of Paulina fits Dench like a glove: she is fiercely loyal, fiercely compassionate, and in denouncing Leontes, just plain fierce.  Her authority blazes onstage and she also demonstrates her command of Shakespeare's language by making every line ring true.  The final scene is affecting precisely because Dench judges each reveal just right and her late-moment betrothal to John Shrapnel's Camillo is a small jewel of a moment.

Shrapnel and Michael Pennington's luckless Antigonus add their considerable experience to these smaller roles but I found Miranda Raison to be fairly colourless as Hermione, particularly when surrounded with the afore-mentioned actors, probably a reflection on her being younger than her colleagues . It would also be nice to see a Hermione who was angry at Leontes' accusations rather than a doe-eyed victim.

John Dagleish made an impression as the wideboy Autolycus but even he couldn't lift the deadly Bohemian scenes which here featured two clunky dance routines.  However the production was always lovely to look at thanks to Oram's seasonal designs and Neil Austin's atmospheric lighting design.

The production is currently playing in repertory with a Terence Rattigan double bill - a short solo piece ALL ON HER OWN which features a spiky Zoe Wanamaker as a widow hitting the bottle over her possible-guilt in her husband's suicide, and also HARLEQUINADE a one-act play which Rattigan had paired with the darker, more famous THE BROWNING VERSION.

With that play I can see it possibly working as a divertissment but as a stand-alone piece it outstayed it's welcome.  Branagh is never the most accomplished of comedy actors, he is too knowing and deliberate to just cut loose and his performance as a vain actor-manager touring the provinces with a production of ROMEO AND JULIET shows that.  Luckily Wanamaker popped up again as a tippling grand dame of the stage who chewed the scenery with gay abandon.  One feels HARLEQUINADE is only there because Branagh is presenting ROMEO AND JULIET later in this season - oh and HARLEQUINADE's actor-manager is interviewing girls for his upcoming production of A Winter's Tale.

Maybe in 1948 it had something to say about the theatre companies who kept touring during the war but the shambolic touring company idea has been done to death by Michael Frayn's NOISES OFF and similar works, and there were times when I sat there, surrounded by guffawing audience members, clueless as to what they found so funny.  Although I have admired Rattigan plays in the past, this actually made me side with the writers such as John Osborne in hating the safe, middle-class, old-world attitude of his work.

How odd then that my next theatre visit was to see a revival of Terence Rattigan's 1936 debut success...