April 19, 2012

More or less the only thing I knew about The Winter’s Tale, before tonight, was it contains the most famous Shakespearean stage direction, “Exit, pursued by bear.”

I guess few people, compared with many of his other plays, could tell you the plot, any famous lines or the name of any of the characters (Hermione, the heroine, is much better known for giving her name to Harry Potter’s girlfriend).

All this suggested we were in for a heavy evening at the Watermill Theatre, but by the interval we were quite captivated by the whole thing, not to mention amazed again by Propellor, the company putting it on.

We’ve now seen several of their productions, so the individual actors have become quite familiar to us. Indeed, it is only six days since we saw them do Henry V. Imagine that. I find it difficult to comprehend the memorising of one Shakespeare play, so to have two on the go in your head at once is quite miraculous.

If the second half had been as good as the first, it would have been an even more impressive production than Henry V, but the problem with The Winter’s Tale – and surely the reason it is not Premier League Shakespeare – is it loses its way after the interval, descending into comedy after the powerful psychological drama before. Far be it for me to criticise The Bard, but I think you may have lost the plot a bit there, didn’t you, Will?

The temptation to use contemporary references to solve this became just too much for Propellor to resist, but it didn’t spoil the evening as there were still plenty of things to enjoy.

Tonight was another lesson in not taking it too seriously and accepting that of all the things Shakespeare’s plays are, the last thing they are meant to be is real life.