Pericles is one of Shakespeare's less well-known plays, although performances of it seem to be popping up more and more in the past few years. At the time it was first produced, it was one of Shakespeare's most popular works. For reasons which are obscure, it was omitted from the Folio, and exists only in corrupted Quarto texts which are generally thought to reflect the hand(s) of at least one other author/contributor. (See here.) The California Shakespeare Festival (called CalShakes for short) has mounted a new production of Pericles at its outdoor theater in the hills above Orinda, about 16 miles east of San Francisco. The production, which is "adapted and directed" by Joel Sass, suffers from an over-reliance on schtick and farce. This emphasis on the comical aspects of the play detracts from its inherent romance and beauty, most notably in its poignant final scenes. Nevertheless, the cast of the CalShakes production does an excellent job, the production is inventive and beautiful, and the play is well worth seeing.
Pericles is the first of Shakespeare's four "Romance" plays, the subsequent ones being Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. This quartet of late plays, which used to be categorized as comedies, are now sometimes thought of as the first "tragicomedies," although they could as easily be called "fantasies" on account of their often fantastical and quasi-magical aspects. The word "Romance" is a good all-purpose description, since it is defined as a narrative depicting heroic exploits, marvelous deeds, fantastic adventures or supernatural events, usually in a historical or imaginary setting, and often in the form of allegory. (See here.) An interesting aside: the word "romance" eventually became synonymous with "novel," a word derived from "novella storia" meaning a new kind of story. In fact, in some languages (e.g. French) the words for novel and romance are derived from the same root. It is no accident Shakespeare wrote his English Romances while Cervantes was inventing the modern novel in Spain.
Pericles certainly qualifies as a "romance" under any of these definitions. It recounts the adventures and calamities of Prince Pericles of Tyre as he travels around the eastern Mediterranean beleaguered by villainous rogues, beset by the inimical sea, finding a wife only to lose her in childbirth, losing his beloved daughter through treachery, and finally being reunited with both daughter and wife in a pair of quasi-magical reunions. The play is an allegory of life, with Pericles' travails representing the universal human journey from innocence through disappointment and despair to self-knowledge and wisdom. It has a huge cast of characters, including an on-stage narrator who serves as a kind of chorus previewing and commenting on the action; and is set in at least seven different locations, including several violent storm scenes on board ship at sea.
CalShakes deals with the difficulties of mounting this fantastical epic through a minimalist use of simple easily movable pieces of scenery, and a stripped down cast of eight actors each playing several roles, some as many as five or six. On the whole, the actors are excellent and handle their multiple (and wildly varying) roles well.
The success of any production of Pericles depends principally on the quality of the leading actor. Christopher Kelly, a CalShakes newcomer, proves fully capable of handling the challenges of the demanding title role. Due to the nature of the story, Pericles can easily come off as a guileless innocent wandering from one disaster to another. The danger is that the audience may find him more pathetic than sympathetic. Kelly manages to avoid this pitfall. He invests Pericles with an attractive lack of affectation at the beginning of the play while conveying an intelligent innocence that is free of foolish naivete. Because Kelly lets us see Pericles' fundamental intelligence and goodness, the audience is able to participate sympathetically in the character's deep disillusionment and painful journey from nihilistic despair to wisdom, acceptance and fulfillment.
Next to Pericles himself, the two most important roles in the play are his wife, Thaisa, and their daughter Marina. Versatile actress Delia Macdougall makes an enchanting and deeply affecting Thaisa. Macdougall beautifully conveys the huge transition Thaisa must make in this play, from budding adolescent radiant with the urgency of young love to mature woman scarred by tragedy and deep loss. In one of the more radical (and amusing) juxtapositions in this production, Macdougall also portrays the Bawd who tries unsuccessfully to force Marina (Thaisa's daughter) into harlotry. Macdougall was able to disappear into the two roles so convincingly that I did not recognize her as the same actress.
The young actress Sarah Nealis assayed the difficult role of Marina, the daughter of Thaisa and Pericles, who is believed to have been murdered when she was captured by pirates and sold into prostitution. This is a demanding role for any performer, with two particularly challenging scenes. The first is the one in which Marina manages to maintain her virtuous chastity against an importunate noble customer (Lysimachus) at the whore house where she has been imprisoned, while simultaneously converting him to virtue and making him fall in love with her. The other is the famous recognition scene in which Marina meets the aged Pericles, who has renounced the world and taken a vow of silence as a result of what he believes is the tragic death and loss of both his wife and child. In this amazing scene at the climax of the play, father and daughter gradually recognize each other as Marina recounts her life story in response to Pericles' increasingly urgent questioning. In both of these very demanding scenes, Nealis was fully convincing. This is no mean feat for a young performer, and deserves recognition as such.
The rest of the roles in this colorful pageant were filled by some of the Bay Area's finest and most reliable actors. Ron Campbell was alternately villainous and hilarious in the character roles of Antiochus, Cleon, a fisherman, a knight, and several other worthies. Danny Sheie was--what can I say--delightfully Danny Sheie as Helicanus (Pericles' principle adviser), Simonides (the jovial father of Thaisa), and Boalt (the whoremonger's servant). The versatile Dominique Lozano was amazingly protean in a huge variety of roles, both female and male, including the evil Dionyza, the mysterious physician Cerimon, a fisherman, a knight, and several others flashing by. Alex Morf, as Lysimachus, was convincing in the difficult conversion scene, and amusingly dastardly as a variety of rogues, cutthroats and hired assassins. Finally, Shawn Hamilton was impressive as both the narrator/chorus Gower and the goddess Diana.
As mentioned at the outset of this review, there was a definite flaw in this production. It was obvious from the very outset that the adaptor/director had chosen to emphasize the comical aspects of this Romance in a rather tongue-in-cheek way. At times, the style of the production seemed to veer into farce at the expense of the more serious, romantic, and even tragic aspects of the play. As far as I was concerned, this approach robbed the production of a great deal of its potential depth and emotional impact.
Thus, the villainous Antiochus (Ron Campbell) was presented simply as an over-the-top farcically melodramatic stage villain all too obviously trying to entrap Pericles with his insinuating riddles. Ideally, the audience should feel a frisson of shock and horror as the true relationship between Antiochus and his daughter is gradually revealed. Played instead for laughs as a mock villain complete with a (totally unnecessary) affected accent, the character lost any semblance of mystery or ambiguity.
This choice to emphasize the farcical at the expense of the "romantic" was seen over and over again throughout the play, with an over-abundance of silly accents, silly walks, and other assorted silly schtick. Although the audience ate it up, of course, there was a price to be paid. This became all too clear at the end of the play, by which point we were so used to seeing every scene presented as farce that a large portion of the audience actually laughed during the deeply moving recognition scene between Pericles and Marina. This was not the fault of the actors, who heroically persevered in portraying the beautiful father-daughter reunion with great sensitivity. At the time, I felt annoyed at the crassness of some members of the audience. In retrospect, I think the fault lies more with the director. Perhaps if Mr. Sass had "adapted and directed" a little less and instead let the actors reveal the truth of their characters a little more, the audience would have been permitted to experience some of the deeper joys of this very beautiful play, and not just the belly laughs.
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