Having never before seen a production of _The Winter's Tale_ (the best reason of all for making the midwinter trek to Toronto for this one), I can't engage in the tried-and-true critic's device of conjuring the ghosts of interpretations past for comparison. Whatever preconceptions I arrived with were based on four or five readings of the play in about five years, and colored somewhat by a Michigan State literature prof who professed a particular love for the last plays (he *hated* it when they were called "romances;" I never quite figured out why), yet who insisted upon the most pragmatic interpretation possible for the magical or miraculous events in them. He brooked no argument whatsoever, and since escaping from his course I've frequently been taken aback by how much I allowed myself to be prejudiced by his viewpoint in order to pass the darn thing.
Case in point: until I was in my seat at St. Stephen's reading the director's notes, it never once entered my head that Hermione might literally be turned to stone in her ordeal, to be awakened by the fulfillment of the oracle sixteen years later. The dropping of that one assumption--that Paulina lies about her death and the entire statue business is a ruse--opens a broad spectrum of possibilities; and in this case it was left to the audience to choose among them. One thing that has always fascinated me about _The Winter's Tale_ is that-- coming from the same playwright who created so many eloquent and tragic death scenes in other works--every single death takes place offstage, news the audience receives second- or third-hand, filtered through the perceptions and possible personal agendas of other characters. In this production Hermione's case in particular is very ambiguous , prompting me to think the report of her death isn't the only one that may or may not be greatly exaggerated. Or, more to the point, may or may not be the end.
In her director's note, Moira Wylie encourages the audience to "have your own dream of the play and your own feelings," and the evening she and her cast and production team gave us made it virtually impossible to do otherwise. Nothing was served up on a platter or shoved down our throats. The costuming in particular (condemned as "all over the map" by one critic whose Word For Today was "static" even though it had nothing to do with the play I saw) was suggestive of a variety of times and places without forcing the story into any of them, a concept I was glad to hear incorporated the actors' ideas about who their characters were and what visual images could enhance that. (Okay, you all know I'm a vocal champion of anything that acknowledges actors' ideas and gives them greater ownership of a project, and I admit I'm pretty biased on the subject. But I *really* liked this.) Thus Leontes' no-nonsense 30s-ish suit contrasted with the more festive attire around him, parallelling David Ferry's decidedly chilly demeanor and pointing up shades of the mafia don in his insecurity about his throne and irrational extremes of jealousy over Hermione. (As my S.O. Jack said later, "He's a Sicilian, after all.") Paulina's neutral colors, natural-fiber textures and simple lines matched her place in the story as the agent of divine truth, "the Artist who challenges Time" described in the director's note. Mamillius was a warmer echo of his father, Florizel a romance-novel fashion plate in poet shirt and modern trousers, Autolycus a colorful cousin to Harold Hill and P.T. Barnum.
My reaction to the performances is best expressed as a series of moments that stand out in my mind; I wished immediately that I had a second opportunity to see it, to follow some connections between characters and circumstances that I only began to make on first observation and will have no chance to examine further except in imperfect memory. A few scraps of that memory: Leontes' freeze-dried voice, drawing a few nervous glances from actors on the fringes of the action well before he actually voiced his suspicions. Mamillius' heartbreaking and very immediate confusion at his father's sudden vicious condemnation of the mother he so clearly adored--and Krista White's very convincing impression as a 10-year- old boy rather than a twentysomething woman. Hermione's journey from secure society matron, to the abused and exhausted woman who surrendered not an ounce of her dignity right up to the second she collapsed, to the figure of profound and mature beauty whose forgiveness and love held the power to make herself and her family whole again. (If a more appropriate expression of the renewal Deb sought in returning to the theatre was possible, I can't imagine what it might have been!) The sense that Polixenes would give his blessing to his son's rebellious marriage to a shepherdess if only Florizel would show the honesty worthy of his royal station--and that in spite of his growing anger he gave absolutely as many chances to do so as he possibly could before blowing his stack.
Patricia Zentilli deserves a medal for walking that very fine ingenue line Perdita demands, for demonstrating very clearly the difference between lack of experience and lack of intelligence or strength. Part of her strength was in her angry I-told-you-so confrontation with Florizel when it became clear his implied plans to circumvent his father's wrath were nonexistent--and part of it in her ability to see that he made a simple (if devastating) mistake and forgive him for it, foreshadowing the similar redemptive and healing power her mother would demonstrate in the final scene. Florizel, bless his hopeless heart, still had a lot to learn; D. Garnet Harding's sincerity was disarming enough to make me forgive him his poor judgment, though I did still wish fervently that his father would remain hale and healthy long enough for the kid to sprout at least a hint of common sense before he wound up being king!
And then there is Paulina, still largely a puzzle as I write this two weeks later. In the earlier scenes, I found myself distracted a few times wondering whether she had a fascinatingly distinctive voice or was fighting a nasty chest cold. But more relevant questions presented themselves at the end of the play, when she confronted Leontes and the audience with an obsessive intensity bordering on madness. If it was madness, it was a constructive madness to bookend Leonte's destructive delusions at the play's outset; yet its constructiveness depended on an absolute faith that the oracle would be fulfilled, that what was lost would be found and the royal family restored. Here lies the line separating this romance from tragedy-- had Perdita and Florizel not arrived or been accepted, Paulina's dedication to keeping the king from remarrying and constantly reminding him of his wrongs would have been a bitter and empty exercise. And even when Perdita did arrive, Paulina's air of suspicion and constant comparisons to the out-of-reach Hermione seemed as if they might threaten the very destiny to which she had dedicated the last sixteen years--Perdita could so easily have remained unknown, and Sicilia condemned permanently to the wintry sorrow brought on by the queen's fate. The hasty series of expository speeches by secondary characters explaining how Perdita's recognition did come about is incurably unsatisfying as far as I've ever been able to tell; but the sense of wonder and excitement in the actors delivering them, especially Joanna Reynolds, went a long way toward mending the inherent awkwardness of the device.
The final image will remain with me a very long time: Paulina, her work done, taking Hermione's place on the pedestal and her "statue" pose, forming a tableau with the similarly still Antigonus and Mamillius, the other victims of Leontes' mad actions. Though it leaves me with unanswerable questions, I found it far more satisfying than the written ending of Paulina married off to Camillo. There was a literal bow to this concept, in Camillo's deferential acknowledgment of Paulina; and it seemed clear that he might have wished for just that closure. But the barrier keeping Paulina aloof from all around her remained solid, opening instead for her husband and the young prince, creating a new family--wherever they might be--newly whole as the royals of Sicilia and Bohemia. Whether they are truly dead, or whether that is truly the end, is ultimately irrelevant. They are there, and the journey of the play is complete. And I am left wishing desperately for a chance to follow it again, to see more of the side paths on it and remember more of those I saw at the time--which, bittersweet as it may be, is one of the things that makes live theatre such a precious thing.
Valerie Lynn Meachum