The Winter’s Tale

Throughout his staging, Kulick, whose other Shakespeare credits include the Public’s recent Pericles and Timon of Athens, has achieved what many directors have failed to do: make Shakespeare in the park not only viable, but perfectly at home. In bringing Leontes’ courtiers to life as denizens of an Edwardian drawing room, and in making of Bohemia a manicured paradise with a stream running through it, Kulick has had the cooperation of set designer Riccardo Hernandez.

Understanding that the words are the thing, they’ve kept the surroundings simple. The action unfolds on a Peter Brook-white floor that rounds up at the back to a low-rise wall. On the floor, Hernandez has placed a pair of two-part murals on casters. One is a reproduction of Sandro Botticelli’s “Venus and Mars”; the other, even more pertinent to the occasion, is a reproduction of Andrea Mantegna’s “Triumph and Virtue.” Together and separately, the murals are spun around the stage by men in livery to create various indoor and outdoor Sicilian spaces. To conjure Bohemia, where a sheep-shearing ritual is underway, the murals are rolled off-stage and two rows of box trees looking like shorn sheep are brought on to stand guard.

Where Kulick has been less than lucky in The Winter’s Take is with his casting, which has the odd effect of making Sicilia and Bohemia look not so much the emblems of death and birth as the realms of bad acting and good acting. As Sicilia’s monarchs, neither Keith David nor Aunjanue Ellis make music from Shakespeare’s language. Yes, the characters they play are brought quickly to fiery emotional heights, but neither actor scales the treacherous peaks with finesse. If there is a way to find nuances in Leontes’s fury, David hasn’t done it. He rails at one bombastic pitch throughout. Ellis, regal in Anita Yavich’s elegant empire maternity gown, speaks as if she had been carved from marble long before being brought out as a statue. Assailed by Leontes, she responds as if she’s being updated about a troublesome scullery maid. Even the usually reliable Jonathan Hadary as Antigonus is unable to portray benevolence as much more than bland acquiescence.

Ah, but in Bohemia, all is lively and gay. Erica N. Tazel is a lovely Perdita. She’s particularly alluring in Shakespeare’s second-best flower distributing scene. Jesse Pennington’s Florizel is a nimble lad with spark in his speech and love in his eye. Together, the actors make something rapturous and inevitable of young love, speaking their lines as liltingly as they might toss off a medley of popular tunes.

The best, however, has been saved for last in this congratulatory review. The rustics are magnificent. And it’s not often that can be said about Shakespeare, where the rough-hewn characters usually deliver comic lines that have long since lost their edge. Bronson Pinchot, who is never less than a hoot in whatever he does, shows up here as a first-class Shakespearean. Never making a false move as the quick-tongued, fast-fingered Autolycus, he struts and minces and sings and impersonates as if he were Shakespeare’s own choice for the role. He’s not above fooling around with the verse either, at one point pronouncing “didoes” as “dildos.” The second after he does, he sneaks a peek at the audience to see how solidly his little jape has landed.

Equaling Pinchot is Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays both stolid Time and Clown, the naïve shepherd who’s Autolycus’s frequent dupe. With his body parts going in different directions whenever he tries to express himself, Stuhlbarg is the adorable fool who, never doing anything right, somehow can never do anything wrong. He’s the well-suited son to Bill Buell’s beautifully realized father. In tandem they are stage magnets; all eyes go to them.

That’s right, folks, you heard right: The Public, where Shakespeare is often a touch-and-go affair, currently has a stable of reliable players. And perhaps it’s time to take a next step with them in order to give the Bard his due. Maybe impresario George Wolfe ought to establish an in-house repertory company under Kulick’s direction. The acting roster might well include Pinchot, Stuhlbarg, Buell, Randy Danson (forceful as Hermione’s supportive Paulina), and Henry Stram, who has long proved his worth and does again this time as Leontes’s spurned but loyal Camillo.

All of the above participants, plus many of their colleagues, have taken Mamillius’ line about a sad tale being best for winter and shown, with Kulick’s assured guidance, that this Winter’s Tale is also a hot bet for summer.