Reviews 2002
Reviews 2002
✭✭✩✩✩
by William Shakespeare, directed by Joseph Ziegler
Soulpepper, Premiere Dance Theatre, Toronto
July 10-August 15, 2002
"A Mingled Yarn"
"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together." So says a minor character in "All's Well That Ends Well". He could well be speaking of Soulpepper's production of Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" that opens its fifth season. Both acting and direction are so uneven that the Bard's late romance is never magical and seldom involving.
The main problem with the show is evident within the first fifteen minutes. Tony Nardi, who made such a splash last year as the jealous Spaniard in Feydeau's "A Flea in Her Ear" and as the tyrannical Teacher in Ionesco's "The Lesson", is badly miscast as Leontes. The comic exaggeration and emphatic delivery that were so perfect in the earlier roles could not be more wrong for a character who is unaccountably struck down with jealousy as if it were a disease that rages until it causes the deaths of his wife and son and the abandonment of his infant daughter.
Instantly jealous characters are a staple of farce, but any whiff of farce would ruin a role that Shakespeare clearly has written as tragic. It's an unusually difficult test for an actor but actors have met the challenge. Colm Feore did so at Stratford in 1986 as did Wayne Best there in 1998. Nardi was clearly restraining himself, but reducing his gestural vocabulary to about five generic movements only makes him less effective. He delivers some of Shakespeare's most complex verse as if it were prose and not the heightened expression of man in torment. Such a superficial reading of Leontes as "the jealous husband" caused line after line to win unintended laughter.
Leontes' sickness, penitence and cure form the overarching plot to which all else is connected. But if we are not afraid of his anger, we can't pity him when he realizes his folly and we can't be amazed by his cure. There are several excellent performances in the show, but none can overcome this fatal flaw.
The one who comes closest to redeeming the show is David Storch as the con-man Autolycus. It is the best performance of this role I've ever seen. And director Joseph Ziegler (who played the role at Stratford in 1986) has made this wildly comic figure fit better into the play than any I've seen. Too often the scenes in Bohemia are played simply as the comic contrast to the tragedy of Sicilia. Ziegler realizes that Autolycus as a conscious spreader of lies is the parallel figure to Leontes, an unconscious spreader of lies. The two themes come together at the end when something that only seems to be real actually becomes real. Like Autolycus's ballads, the life in Hermione's statue depends on the belief of the audience.
Storch has achieved the perfect level to play this part too often taken over the top. He makes it clear that he views all men a as fools and if he deceives anyone it's because he deserves it. Storch accomplishes this with an amazing mastery of physical comedy. In a tragic role he was the best thing about CanStage's "The Lonesome West". In a comic role he is the best thing about Soulpepper's "The Winter's Tale". This man is one to watch.
Among other fine performances is Nancy Palk as Paulina. Palk does not give us the harridan as the role is often played but rather as a woman who harps on Leontes' fault because she has faith her patient will recover. Susan Coyne is an excellent Hermione, seeming physically to weaken under Leontes' every accusation and using every effort to gather her strength to defend herself at her trial. The moment of her awakening as the statue is marvellous because she gives the sense that this wonder is also a wonder to her. William Webster gives one of his best ever performances for Soulpepper as the Old Shepherd, making us feel his character's joy. And Patricia Fagan gives grit to the role of Perdita that makes sense of her upbringing and, importantly, makes sense of her often glossed-over lines.
Other fine work comes from Oliver Dennis as Antigonus the earnest servant Leontes banishes. As Polixenes, C. David Johnson shows such nobility in Sicilia and such irrational anger at his son in Bohemia that one wishes he had been assigned Leontes. In contrast, Robert Haley is ineffectual as Camillo, the wise counsellor Leontes ignore. Christopher Morris tries but can quite make Florizel seem a milksop. And Paul Thomas Manz never got the knack of delivering the Young Shepherd's numerous comic lines so that they were funny.
Joseph Ziegler shows a great understanding of how the play works and has the courage to present it uncut (unlike Brian Bedford's abridged version for Stratford in 1998). His direction, however, is a mixture of good and bad decisions. From the moment Leontes is stricken with jealousy, events should hurtle towards the deaths of Hermione and Mamillius in Act 3. Here the pace is leaden throughout and lacks any momentum. Some scenes seem almost listless. He attempts to avoid comedy when the bear pursues Antigonus but also avoid clarity. He ruins the wonderful speech by Time by having Nancy Palk play it upstage on stilts behind a scrim and distorted through a microphone so that nothing is understood. His best invention is to have Paulina toss the baby Perdita at the raging Leontes, who catches it. It's a brilliant way to show how she proves he still has the natural instinct in him even if he won't acknowledge it.
Guido Tondino has designed a very attractive set, modern in look with classical references for Sicilia that are removed for Bohemia. His method of distinguishing the two worlds of the play is not original but is well executed. The Sicilians are all in black Victorian costumes; the Bohemians wear earth-toned peasant outfits in a Slavic style. Steven Hawkins' lighting makes Sicilia look cold and Bohemia warm, but there is little variety within those two settings. Ted Dykstra has written the pleasant but not especially memorable music.
When this play works we feel all the wonder the characters do. Here, David Storch's heroic effort in enlivening the Bohemian scenes cannot overcome the deadening effect of Tony Nardi's performance. And a play that can be marvellous becomes as tedious as rewinding a tangled skein.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Tony Nardi, Susan Coyne and C. David Johnson. ©2002 Soulpepper.
2002-07-21
The Winter’s Tale