Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge

Some time ago I attended a production of The Winter's Tale put on by the Globe MFA, which was (and may still be) a joint effort between the Globe Theatres in San Diego and the students in the MFA program at the University of San Diego. I was feeling more than a little trepidation about going to see this basically nonprofessional (as opposed to unprofessional) production; this was only the second time I'd seen the play, and the first - at USF back in 1996 - was one of those magical theatrical experiences where everything comes together. Because of that experience, Hermione quickly became one of my favorite Shakespearean characters. The trial scene (3.2) is one of my favorites in all of Shakespeare, and I love him for writing such a strong, compassionate, admirable female character. 

Well, I didn't want to be disappointed, so I kept reminding myself of how much I had enjoyed a similar MFA-related production of Pericles at the Globe complex's Centre Stage in 1997. So, as we sat in the car driving down to San Diego, I pretty much told myself that, if there was at least one character, or I should say one actor, in this production who could bring his or her character to "life", the play would be okay and not a disappointment. Of course, if that character was Hermione, it would be all the cooler. I also entertained the thought that maybe, just maybe, Emmelyn Thayer would have some part in the play. I had seen her the previous September as Thaisa in the Globe Theatres' (professional) production of Pericles (not the same as the aforementioned MFA production), which I really enjoyed, and was hoping she'd show up again. 

Well, we went into the theatre and found our seats, and I put on my glasses and began to read the program. So, I'm sitting there, reading my program, and the first thing I check out is who is playing Hermione . . . Hooray! I was delighted to see that, indeed, it was Emmelyn Thayer. I was sure now that the evening would be worthwhile. I looked at the names of the other actors and didn't recognize anyone. Then I noticed the director's name: Art Manke. He was one of the directors at A Noise Within, and I had gone to see their production of Cymbeline that he directed back in April 2000. That was a good experience, so I felt ever more optimistic about the evening. 

 It turned out I had good reason to be optimistic. There were a few very good performances, some passable ones, and the costumes were good, and the music was very good, and the shepherds' dance was cute, and the statue scene turned my heart over, and I was happy when all was done. As I had hoped, Emmelyn Thayer's Hermione was nearly perfect. At one point, when Leontes comes into his wife's room to take their son away from her and accuse her of treason, she looks at him like "Is this a joke?" (In fact, she says, "What is this? Sport?") Then he calls her an adulteress and she flinches as if he'd struck her, and I'm thinking "Thank you!" I was so grateful to see someone act, or in this case react, like they knew what was going on around them. (Not like certain Desdemonas and Imogens from previous plays at the USF who shall remain nameless.) It was this attention to characterization that helped make Thayer's performance one of the highlights of the evening. 

 

The guy playing Leontes was probably the weakest of the lot, but I reason that it shows more in him than in someone else because he has such a big part and because it's such a difficult one to play (instant, unexplained, consuming jealousy). Paulina was good, although she went a bit over the top when Hermione died. And Camillo's voice work was good, but his body movement, or lack thereof, was a little awkward. During one scene, he stood with his right hand poised a few inches in front of his abdomen and left it there for the whole scene. He looked like a mannequin. 

Generally speaking, there were only two things about the play that really bothered me at all. Actually, one thing that puzzled me and one thing that I was outraged over. The thing that puzzled me was that they included the dance of the saltiers, although there were only three instead of twelve. Well, really, it wasn't the dance that puzzled me, but what happened during it. The dancers are referred to in the text as "men of hair", which, for some reason, is generally interpreted as satyrs. Satyrs are symbolic of sexual . . . mayhem is the word I guess I'm looking for. In Greek mythology, satyrs were the attendants of Dionysus, the god of wine, etc, and their specialty was getting drunk, dancing and singing and reveling, and assaulting nymphs. So anyhow, in the play these satyrs are dancing around in a very suggestive manner, which I can accept because this is a country festival after all, and they are satyrs after all. But, during their dance the onlookers (the shepherds and shepherdesses, and Perdita and Florizel) are obviously affected by what they're seeing, and all of a sudden Perdita and Florizel start kissing, growing more passionate at it as the dance continues. At any moment I expected to hear my brother-in-law call out, "Get a room!" Except, what would Scott be doing at a Shakespeare play? The reason this puzzled me is not because I'm opposed to seeing passionate kissing on stage (actually, it was pretty good for passionate kissing. Usually, I find that about 99% of stage kissing - and even a lot of film and tv kissing - appears forced and unnatural, like bad acting), but because I think it is a wrong interpretation of the characters of Florizel and Perdita. Well, not "wrong", but not according to how I read the characters. 

It could be argued that there is no "wrong" interpretation of Shakespeare, as is evidenced by the many productions with varying concepts from clever to wacko; but there is such a thing as going contrary to what is written, so you either contradict it and hope no one notices or you avoid it by cutting the lines. In 4.4, Perdita tells Florizel that she's worried his father will somehow accidentally find out that his son loves a shepherd's daughter and be really mad. Florizel counters by saying that Jupiter, Neptune, and Apollo all disguised themselves (as a bull, a ram, and a poor country boy respectively) in order to have their way with certain ladies. So he, Florizel, has transformed himself into a shepherd, but says the gods did so not "in a way so chaste" as his own manner, "since my desires / Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts / Burn hotter than my faith." So he doesn't have any intention of acting in the lascivious manner the gods did. She answers, "O, but sir, / Your resolution cannot hold when 'tis / Opposed, as it must be, by th'power of the King." This indicates to me that Florizel's intentions are honorable, and that he will keep faith with her. That he is talking about marriage is indicated by Perdita's saying his resolution will be opposed by his father. Then there's the whole conversation Perdita has with Polixenes about flowers and hybridization and bastardy, and she says, "I will not put / The dibble in earth to set one slip of them, /No more than, were I painted, I would wish / This youth should 'twere well, and only therefore / Desire to breed by me." So I figure she's saying she'd no more plant a "bastard" flower (meaning a hybrid) than put cosmetics on and let Florizel treat her like a harlot and get her with a bastard child. At least, that's how I interpret it. (Except, I must say at this point that these lines about flowers were cut in Manke's production.) A few lines later, when Perdita is passing out flowers to all and sundry, she mentions several flowers she wishes she could give to Florizel and then says, "O, these I lack / To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, / To strew him o'er and o'er." Florizel says, "What, like a corpse?" And Perdita responds, "No, like a bank for love to lie and play on, / Not like a corpse - or if, not to be buried, / But quick and in mine arms." Here she is getting into some more sensual meaning, and immediately afterwards she says, "Sure this robe of mine / Does change my disposition." By which we see it's not really in her disposition to talk with such frank passion about Florizel, and I think she's a little embarrassed by speaking of her feelings for him so openly. So, if she doesn't normally even talk about things like that in front of people, why should she start acting like that in front of people? It made no sense to me, and that kind of puzzled me. Of course, there was that music, and when music comes into play, constraint is free to fly out the window, I suppose. 

The thing that outraged me was Hermione's trial scene. The Carter Centre Stage is theatre in the round, so you're not always going to see everyone's face. Well, imagine my shock (and outrage) when Hermione is led in by Paulina, who supports her because Hermione is so weak from having recently given birth, not to mention having endured the time of imprisonment in a dungeon, and then she goes to stand on the prisoner's box, or whatever that thing was supposed to be, to face Leontes, and she's got her back to our side of the theatre!!! What the . . . ?! I was appalled, yes, and frustrated. I could still hear her voice, and every once in a while she would turn her head in our direction, but that only served to make me more frustrated at not being able to see all her facial expressions. 

She started out her defense with a very quiet and very tired-sounding Since what I am to say must be but that Which contradicts my accusation, and The testimony on my part no other But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me To say "Not guilty". They did cut maybe the last third of her first speech, which includes "For honour, / 'Tis a derivative from me to mine", and I was sorry to see it gone because I think it's important because it explains why she's going through the trial ordeal at all. She got to say all but the first two lines of her second speech. Then Leontes says she's going to get the death penalty. Then she began her third speech. "Sir," she says in almost a whisper, and with a tone implying deep sorrow and a great weariness of soul, "spare your threats. / The bug which you would fright me with, I seek." (A "bug" in this sense is a horrible object.) Now, I'd heard that line before, when I saw the USF production, and I've read it more than a dozen times, and I "get" the words, yet it never really hit me what Hermione meant until Thayer spoke the line. Silly, isn't it? Kind of like reading a scripture dozens of times over the years, and then one day it stands out and has a meaning you never considered before. Anyway, she goes on to say that life doesn't mean that much to her anymore because her reasons for living are lost to her: her husband's love, regard, and approval; her firstborn child (and here she began to cry, a heart-rending sound, though not an overwhelming one, which is all I can mention since I couldn't see her face!), who is being kept away from her as if she had a disease; her baby daughter taken from her and sent away to be murdered; and her rights as a new mother, who should, no matter what her social station, be allowed to have some period of recovery after childbirth; not to mention that she, a great king's daughter, has been put on trial in public, with her supposed crimes posted on telephone poles all over the city. (Well, not telephone poles, but whatever.) Then she says she will abide by the decree of the oracle, which pronounces her chaste. Leontes rejects it, Apollo gets angry and there's thunder and lightning, and a messenger runs in to say that the prince, their son, has died, and Hermione collapses in a dead faint, and it was all very well done. Then we go off to Bohemia to see what will become of the little baby princess. 

I liked how they managed the bear that eats Antigonus. Antigonus was standing there looking up at the "sky", which got dark and ominous, and there were sounds of an approaching storm (I think), and distant animal roars, and then the roars got louder, and Antigonus lay down on the ground. Suddenly, two cast members who were lying at the edge of the stage stood up, each carrying a corner of a huge swath of red cloth. They ran across the stage, covering the body of Antigonus with the cloth, and then proceeded up the stairs on either side of the seating section, causing the cloth to tear down the middle. I don't think it really tore; I think it was velcroed or something so it could come apart easily. But there was a big tearing sound. The effect was to make one think of ripping and blood and death. Quite interesting and effective in the small theatre space. 

I am happy to report that the final scene, the unveiling of Hermione's statue, was done in such a way that she faced our side of the theatre. When her breast rose and fell as she took her first breath, it gave me a chill, even though I knew perfectly well what was going to happen. The expression on Hermione's face as she looked at Leontes for the first time in 16 years was one part haunting and two parts heavenly. Really, Emmelyn Thayer had some good face stuff going on. So I was very pleased with the evening as a whole, and regret only the unfortunate staging of the trial scene. I thought seriously about going down to San Diego the next day to see it again (from the other side of the theatre), but they were sold out. Oh, well. The synopsis of my life.