Reviews

Pericles

Shakespearean saga unfolds as epic adventure.

Ben Carlson as Pericles with Dion Johnstone as Helicanus in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's production of Pericles.
Ben Carlson as Pericles with Dion Johnstone as Helicanus in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's production of Pericles, directed by David Bell.
(© Liz Lauren)

Shakespeare's Pericles is a gargantuan beast of a play. The plot doesn't arc so much as it caroms from adventure to adventure in the manner of an old-time melodrama serial. It packs in everything from shipwrecks to famines, kidnappings to weddings, and throws mystics, whores, and pirates into a picaresque gallery of grand spectacle. It's an epic that could easily become an epic slog, but not at the hands of Chicago Shakespeare.

Directing this behemoth for the company is David Bell, who overcomes all the difficulties and creates something beautiful and thrilling. As Prince Pericles makes his way across oceans and continents, he keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, nearly breathless with anticipation as to what's going to happen next and gobsmacked by the overwhelming, immersive, and wholly distinct worlds the text evokes.

The plot literally storms onto the stage. Draped in costume designer Nan Cibula-Jenkins' gossamer-light, sea-foam garments, the 22-person ensemble seems to float into view, adrift within projection designer Aaron Rhyne's towering swells of billowing waves. Those projections are crucial to the nautically inclined set that designer Scott Davis has crafted, an expansive, overturned hull that easily morphs into places ranging from the desolate wastelands of Tarsus to the gaudy, bawdy opulence of a house of pleasure.

Pericles begins his adventure wooing the daughter of the king of Antioch. The singular courtship has the prince surrounded by impaled, gore-dangling decapitated heads, the remains of previous suitors who failed to solve the riddle asked of all would-be bridegrooms. Pericles, however, solves the riddle, exposing a grotesque royal family secret that sends him fleeing in fear for his life. From there, he journeys through a vast landscape of joys and sorrows, from immeasurable wealth to an utter poverty of mind, body, and spirit. Pericles gains and loses the world over the course of his travels, robbed not just of his riches but also of his sanity, as he morphs from eloquent, elegant royal to a mute, ragged shell.

Bell's cast offers an array of marvelously entertaining performances, starting with Ben Carlson's ever-relatable Pericles. At the nadir of the prince's wretchedness, he rails at the heavens, "O you gods! Why do you make us love your goodly gifts, and snatch them straight away?" It's a moment that captures the great and terrible awesomeness of a higher power whose capricious whims can shatter a human heart.

The cast is loaded with memorable supporting roles. As a duplicitous queen, Lia Mortensen has eyes of ice, and radiates the fearsome lethal beauty of a deep freeze in dead winter. As Pericles' embattled, daughter Marina, Christina Panfilio creates a young woman of impassioned virtuousness and sharp wits. Kidnapped by pirates, sold as a sex slave, or brawling with knife-wielding murderers, she embodies the strength of an indomitable survivor. Ross Lehman brings a pagan grandeur to the Ephesian healer Cerimon, channeling the dangerous mystery of a demigod whose ancient powers are not to be trifled with. And as King Antiochus, Sean Fortunato is a suavely depraved sleaze whose sex life will turn your stomach.

Bell has cast members trading off narrative roles, interweaving exposition with choruses of singing commentary that are achingly beautiful. Music director Ethan Deppe and composer Henry March will have you truly believing you've been privy to the miraculous music of the spheres. Equally atmospheric is Jesse Klug's lighting design, which bathes the story in a dramatic spectrum running from shadow to dazzle.

This isn't a tragedy, so it's no secret that Pericles eventually lives happily ever after. But knowing the outcome doesn't diminish the thrill of the powerfully surging story. For all his singular adventures, Pericles is an everyman, making his way across the peaks and valleys of life that everyone traverses as they travel from cradle to tomb. At Chicago Shakespeare, it's a beautiful journey, mesmerizingly told.

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Pericles

Closed: January 18, 2015