THE WINTER'S TALE In rep to 19 June. Then transfers to Stratford-upon-Avon.

RSC

THE WINTER'S TALE
by William Shakespeare

Roundhouse, London In rep to 19 June 2002
7.15 Mats Wed & Sat 1.30pm
7.16 Runs 3hr 30min One interval

TICKETS 0870 609 1110
Review Timothy Ramsden 12 April

The RSC relocates successfully to Chalk Farm; Shakespeare's play more fitfully to the USA.The Venue:
If it does nothing else, the Roundhouse creates a sense of Elizabethan theatre; a crowded (at present, in foyer terms, over-crowded), exciting space, epic yet affording scope for the solo actor, split between promenaders and seated gentry (though on crucifyingly uncomfortable seats, designed for those with ironing-board backs and linearly-challenged lower limbs you need to get shorty to fit with comfort, and to have someone similar sitting behind if you're not to risk kicks in the back).

At the RSC's opening production the prom.-people began with the best deal, seated at ringside tables, slumming-down Leontes' formal dinner with their plastic glasses and coke bottles. It had to be too good to last. A couple of scenes in and they were shifted to makeshift seating no real promenading in evidence.

I'd hate to be there when there's a fire alert maybe as-yet-unseen doors would fling open. And I trust this multi-stepped venue has decent disabled access.

That said, the great ex-engine shed in Chalk Farm, with its theatre links over several decades (in the 1960s and 1970s it housed a range of work) has a life and democratic energy different from the West End or indeed the Barbican. If the life doesn't get stuffed out if it by over-gentrification or ticket price-hikes then (once they've etched out a bit more foyer space and upgraded the portaludicrous lavatories), it could be a fine laboratory for developing the style of modern Shakespeare production. And so to

The Winter's Tale:

A mesmerising triple-decked illusion opens this show. During the cabaret for a formal dinner a woman is made to vanish. The trick's brilliant. And she disappears from a hoisted coffin to re-appear on stage, underlining the play's theme of rebirth. The final layer's apparent much later, when the same young woman enters as the adult Perdita, eventually to be restored to jealous Leontes and his wrongly-accused queen Hermione.

We're in mid-20th century America. When a shaven Douglas Hodge shambles to the microphone to give his speech as Leontes, the Sicilian king emerges as a mafia don, lurching over the microphone to mumble his speech from prepared speaker's cards.

But Hodge can't forget he's a Shakespearean actor. And despite the production's celluloid imagery the whole court's presented in the grey shades of a black-and-white film - where mafia anger's rarely shouted, it's not long before we're back to the usually suspect Shakespearean expostulation.

Psychology fares better. The time it takes Hermione and her companions to realise the angry Leontes' irruption into their circle isn't some joke is a sure sign of her innocence. And Brian Protheroe's Camillo is clearly the mob strategist, used to concealing his personal reactions.

The venue lends itself equally to the early sociability, the sparseness of the trial, where an ashen Hermione carelessly clangs her metallic chains against the microphone stand, and the festive sheep-shearing hoe-down sixteen years later (Time's speech is cut).

Listening even to good British actors speak American is wearing, working best with the stereotypical hillbilly Shepherds, especially Keith Bartlett's old man ('Thou met'st with things dying, ah with things noo born'). The rain-soaked discovery of baby Perdita is simple and moving in this great global space.

Best of all is Myra Lucretia Taylor's Paulina, one of three American cast members. Instead of the usual middle-class know-all, Taylor offers a hard-working soul of society. As a woman of colour she might face a double-glazed glass ceiling, but she'd still live a better life than those on the roof, and she knows what's right. It's an outstanding characterisation, loveable as well as admirable.

Leontes: Douglas Hodge
Hermione: Anastasia Hille
Mamillius: Toby Parkes/Jacob Parsons
Camillo; Brian Protheroe
Antigonus: Jude Akuwudike
Paulina: Myra Lucretia Taylor
Cleomenes: Robin Lowe/Kurtis O'Brian
Dion/Dorcas: Gracy G Goldman
Gaoler: James Telfer
Emilia: Olwen May
Lady Guest/Mopsa: Sirine Saba
Nurse: Fiona Lait
First Officer: James Hyland
Second Officer/Florizel: Alan Turkington
Third Officer: Dan Crute
Justice: Jami Quarrell
Priest: James Staddon
Lord from Bohemia/Yokel/Pilot: James Garnon
Polixenes: Rolf Saxon
Perdita:Lauren Ward
Autolycus: Felix Dexter
Old Shepherd: Keith Bartlett
Young Shepherd: Dylan Charles

Director: Matthew Warchus
Designer: Vicky Mortimer
Lighting: Hugh Vanstone
Sound: Mic Pool
Music: Gary Yershon
Music Directors: Joinathan Rutherford/Bob Winquist
Movement: Quinny Sacks
Illusionist: Paul Kieve
Dialect consultant: Deborah Hecht
Dialect coach: Charmian Hoare
Company voice work: Andrew Wade/Lyn Darnley

2002-04-15 09:35:26