"The Winter's Tale' at People's Light

The term "problem play" is often applied to works that cause confusion as to whether the work should be approached as comedy or drama. The Winter's Tale poses another question: Is it first-rate Shakespeare?

Two of the Bard's so-called problem productions, Timon of Athens and Pericles, were staged effectively in recent seasons, and both proved to be intriguing. But The Winter's Tale is surely one of Shakespeare's messiest and least satisfying achievements.

The play concerns a Sicilian king named Leontes who has convinced himself that his pregnant wife has been unfaithful to him with the visiting king of Bohemia. When members of his entourage assure him that he's mistaken, Leontes turns against them, banishing some and threatening others with death. When the queen delivers a baby girl, Leontes spits in the tot's face and calls her a bastard.

Unlike Othello, The Winter's Tale provides no motivation for Leontes's erroneous suspicion. Nor does it show anything in the king's background that would lead him to feel insecure. Yet Leontes orders his wife killed and his daughter thrown into the sea.

Bohemian seacoast?

In the second half, 16 years have passed. Perdita, the king's abandoned daughter, was saved by a stranger who found her cradle on the shore; now this sweet teenager falls in love with the son of the Bavarian king (who also escaped). Leontes, having lived with his guilt, has come to accept those he previously oppressed. Even his supposedly dead queen comes back to life.

When Timon of Athens behaved badly, audiences could see that he had good impulses, so everyone rooted for him during his exile and was grateful to see his salvation. The rash Leontes engenders no such sympathy.

Did I mention that the action takes place on the sea coast of Bohemia, which was a land-locked central European country?

The Winter's Tale lacks strength of character, unity of plot, and even great poetry. When the most memorable line is "Exit, pursued by a bear," you know you're watching inferior Shakespeare.

Kisses for the audience

The People's Light production tries to compensate for the weak script by embellishing the story with song, dance and pageantry. While snowflakes fall onstage (and outdoors, too, on opening night), clowns cavort and a symbolic straw-dummy Witch of Winter is imprisoned, to be set on fire at the evening's end.

An actor armed with a megaphone (Pete Pryor) interrupts the action to comment on it; he even walks into the auditorium and kisses audience members. These diversions, presumably, are calculated to distract us from the lack of substance on stage.

Wacky energy

The 22 actors performed admirably under innovative direction by Guy Hollands, which gave a special wacky energy to the low-comedy scenes. They worked on a thrust stage, but the Peoples Light theater is an elongated rectangular hall that lacks the intimacy of London's Globe. People in the back rows probably missed some of the dialogue directed to the sides of the thrust stage. Even in my fourth-row seat, some words barely could be heard.

Christopher Patrick Mullen as Leontes shouted some of his speeches to indicate rage, and whispered others when he confided in the audience. Greg Wood was stalwart as the king of Bohemia, and Nancy McNulty was sympathetic as the wronged queen.

That old pro Stephen Novelli made more of the servant Camillo than appears on the page. Saige Hassler was a spirited and likeable daughter.