I’m going to say something up front because I had it said to me (well, I read it), and it helped me enjoy the movie “Sing Sing“. This is a true prison story. But there are no riots, no escapes, no makeshift shivs sticking anybody in the back. It’s not that kind of story. That’s not a spoiler, that’s permission to breathe, relax, and appreciate what’s really going on in the movie. You don’t have to watch in fear that something bad is going to happen.
I admit that I dismissed Sing Sing at first as just another take on “Shakespeare Behind Bars,” which I first saw twenty years ago. That was a mistake, I’m happy to say.
Sing Sing is the best movie I’ve seen in a long time. Too often I’ll watch a movie in that half-listening, “put it on in the background” way that we sometimes do when we treat an item like a todo-list box to be checked instead of an experience to be savored. Not this time. I was hooked in the first minutes. I put down the computer and sat on the edge of my couch cushions straight through to the end.
This movie tells the story of Sing Sing prison’s Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program. It focuses on the story of John “Divine G” Whitfield, a playwright himself and original member of the group, played brilliantly by Colman Domingo. We also learn that he’s incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit, and on a continuing quest to prove his innocence.
We open with the close of the group’s most recent performance, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the addition of new members to the group. Here we meet Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, playing himself. One of the fascinating aspects of this movie is that it’s based on a true story and played by many of the actual original players. If, like me, you’re wondering how the two main characters ended up as “divine” something? Well, that’s not the writing, that’s the reality. Those were their names.
Despite Divine G’s insistence that Divine Eye be admitted to the group, there’s some immediate animosity at Eye’s strong new personality. G is thrilled when the other members of the group suggest they perform one of G’s original plays next, only for Eye to sway the group that a comedy is the way to go. But then they both audition for the only dramatic role in the script (an original, created by the group’s director).
This sets up the first of many confrontations between the two. G loves the program and knows what it’s done for the other inmates. Eye comes from a world where if someone so much as walks too close behind you, your life might be in danger. The evolving relationship between the two is the our major story arc.
What About The Shakespeare?
This is a Shakespeare blog, so let’s talk about Shakespeare. This isn’t a Shakespeare movie. They don’t perform Hamlet in the big final act. But somehow, that makes it an even better depiction of why Shakespeare is universal.
We find out that Eye became interested in theatre after stumbling across King Lear as one of the few books accessible to him. Unprompted, he quotes, “When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools” with no fanfare, no “Look at me I’m quoting Shakespeare,” no flourish or fanfare. His interpretation actually made me laugh, saying that “whoever wrote this, man, had to did a bid before.” The idea that Shakespeare can just pop into your life, at any time and place, and you don’t even know what it is, but it still resonates, no matter who you are? Come on now. What have we been trying to say all these years?
There is more Shakespeare than that, not to worry. Despite the play being an original time travel comedy featuring time travel, pirates, and zombies, it also features Hamlet. (If that makes you think of Hamlet 2, you’re not alone.) Eye, of course, is playing the role – which affords G the opportunity to direct him. The actual director of the group is not an inmate, so while he can speak to the theatre, he can’t speak to the experience. That’s where G shines. He helps Eye break through from “I walked on stage and said the lines” to “I am the character.” It’s really quite a thing of beauty to behold.
I’ve often said that a key to understanding Shakespeare is realizing that, underneath the words, “there are people in there.” Well, that’s true here, too. These are prisoners, but they are people. There are multiple scenes where they talk about their children, their lives outside the prison, and how they got there. There’s a scene where they all meditate on their “happy place” and talk about it, and an inmate realizes that his happy place is right there, right now. He is happy where he’s found his people.
I could keep on like this, describing the scenes I loved, but I’ll tell the whole movie. There is a story that we want to see resolved. Eye, knowing he’s innocent, struggles to get out – no matter how much value he’s found in the RTA program. G, who slowly but thankfully becomes part of the RTA program, can’t imagine any world other than the one he’s made for himself. Both these characters are changed individuals by the movie’s end credits.
One more scene, and then I’ll wrap up. During an early confrontation, Eye is still throwing around N-words like they’re part of the normal prison vocabulary. “We don’t say that here,” G tells him. “We say beloved.”
I get it, I think, at least as much as a white person can. Both, in their way, are expressions of a bond that exists, a way of saying, “We are the same, we come from the same world, there are things that we share that not everyone shares.” But they can achieve the same purpose and still be completely different ways of doing it.
And at first, you think, “Yeah, sure.” This is the guy still packing a knife in his waistband, ready to cut one of his fellow actors just because the blocking called for him to get a little too close. But you know what’s going to happen, And when it does, it’s … just so natural. The director doesn’t call your attention to it with over-the-top background music. There’s no meaningful pause for the audience to have their “Ohhhhhh, ok!” moment.
That’s why I love this movie. You don’t spend the whole time thinking, “Somebody created this story, somebody wrote a script, somebody directed it and told the actors what to do and where the camera should look.” This isn’t just a real story, many of the original actors perform the story including Divine Eye. If you love something about it, love it more because it really happened. It’s not someone’s wishful thinking. Score one for Shakespeare.
The actual play performed by the inmates is … something.
For Christmas this year, the geeklets all got together and sent us to Broadway to see Romeo and Juliet, starring Rachel Zegler and Kit Connor! Of course, being the wrong generation, we don’t have any context for who these two young actors are, but it’s Shakespeare on Broadway; that’s all that matters to me. I might be the only one who feels that way, but I don’t care!
A quick word about the theatre (Circe in the Square), because it’s important context here. The most important thing they wanted us to know is no cameras, at all. Don’t even take your phone out. If we catch you, you’ll be kicked out. They said this multiple times. They walked around carrying big signs that said it. When the lights went down, they shone flashlights on people who didn’t listen (or didn’t care), but I didn’t see anybody kicked out.
I say this to excuse the lack of pictures. The few I added here, because a blog post demands at least one picture, are grabbed from the official website. You can check it out (linked above), for more “official” photos. I’m sure they put this policy in place because if they didn’t, it’d be nothing but people trying to record the young stars. It is a shame because it makes it seem like they’re hiding something. Do you know another reason for not letting people record? It’s when you don’t think you have a quality product and don’t want the word to spread.
On With The Show
The theatre is “in the round,” so we’ve got a plain black disk of a stage dead center and seats all around. There are exits/entrances at opposite ends, with elevated platforms. There’s some sort of “stuffed animal” theme going on, with a shopping carriage full of them on stage, and a giant one (as in, more than human sized) taking up one of the elevated platforms. I’m guessing this is supposed to remind us that these characters are children. But they don’t otherwise play much of a role, they’re just there.
Then comes a fascinating move I’ve never seen before, and probably cost a lot of the budget. Picture a flat black disk, like I said. Now imagine it’s a piece of paper, folded down the middle. And one of the pieces starts rising up like you’re folding the paper in half. WTF is going on here? From where we sat it reminded me suddenly of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, talking through the wall. But as it comes all the way down we see that underneath is something I can’t quite explain. It’s all multicolored, perhaps like a garden? Wildflowers? It also looks a bit like a whole bunch of stuffed animals. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that — pieces of the floor go flying every now and then (sometimes thrown) and it appears to just be multi-colored foam.
This was a practical choice because this is where all the fight scenes happen. Whenever somebody’s getting thrown around the stage, they’ve got a soft landing. Other than that, I couldn’t entirely place what “scene” it did or did not represent.
The big centerpiece was Juliet’s bed / balcony. The first time it comes down from the ceiling on big heavy columns, complete with a ladder for her to exit. That’s kind of cool. Later it comes down on metal cables and I wonder why the difference, but then I see — the cables bring it all the way to the floor, where they are unclipped (or reclipped, when it needs to go back up). (In one scene, much of the cast quietly assembles under the bed, presumably as a safety measure. I do admit to wondering what would have happened if a cable or clip failed.)
Give The People What They Want
Ok, let’s talk about the performance. This crowd was clearly there to see the stars. The young woman behind us had already seen the show but was now seeing it again, because she did not get Rachel Zegler’s autograph at stagedoor. Sadly, a predicted winter storm came in during the show, and stage door was canceled for this performance. Maybe she’ll get to go again while it’s still up.
But seriously. When they hand Zegler a microphone, the crowd goes crazy. Is this a musical? There were hints that this was a musical. It’s a musical in the sense of “People want to hear Rachel Zegler sing,” which she does a few times. There’s more music in the form of a few group dance numbers. But nobody’s singing any dialogue.
Was That Always A Laugh Line?
This was a funny production. We laughed, a lot. The comic timing and delivery of the stars was spot on. They could get the audience laughing in the silences as well as the spoken dialogue.
But … maybe a little *too* much? The balcony scene, for example, was a laugh riot. People laughed at “She speaks!” and “But she says nothing” and “Speak again bright angel.” Hmm. They laughed when Mercutio died. They laughed when Nurse found Juliet’s body. I understand that laughter is the easiest way to interact with the audience, but i definitely think that sometimes they forgot to stop playing it for comedy.
Meanwhile the lines that Shakespeare did write as laugh lines? Like when Juliet says, “How can you say you’re out of breath when you still have enough breath to say you’re out of breath?” Got *nothing*.
A Rumble Ain’t A Rumble Without Mercutio In It
There are no swords in the play. Also, no guns. The violence for me was kind of like West Side Story meets Outsiders? Whenever Capulets and Montagues met, there was a fight. Many bodies going at it, wrestling, tossing each other around, throwing punches. Several times characters are bloodied. I’m fine with this, this works. You get the feeling that nobody’s thinking about this anymore, nobody (except Benvolio of course) is thinking, wait, why are we fighting? It’s become animalistic. No problems with that.
But people have to die in this play, and that’s where it gets confusing. Were Mercutio and Tybalt stabbed, or only beaten to death? We need a weapon because Mercutio needs to be mortally wounded in one quick instant. So there is a blade brandished at one point, to establish that it’s in play. Maybe it was the blocking, maybe it’s where I was sitting, but I never saw the mortal blow. I saw Mercutio show the audience that there was a knife, then there’s a tussle, then everybody’s screaming and parting and there’s blood and a dying Mercutio. The Tybalt fight was even worse from my angle because we clearly got to watch Romeo pummeling Tybalt into a bloody mess and you really did think that he was going to simply beat him to death.
Double, Double …. Double, Double
Ok, now let’s talk about the questionable decisions. This production was doubled like nothing I’d ever seen before.
Mercutio / Friar Lawrence / Prince – In a practical sense this one can work, it was just weird. For one, there’s not actually a Prince character. The actress handling this triple role acted more like a narrator, holding a hand mic we could all see, and turning the prince’s parts into almost Chorus-like parts with lines line, “And the Prince decreed….” This includes the wrap up at the end. But for Friar Lawrence and Mercutio, the major difference she went with was voices. Lawrence was more high-pitched and a little nerdy. Mercutio, sadly, was “stoner bro.” While worked to illicit laughs from the audience, it reduced Mercutio to *only* laughs from the audience. “Bro, I am hurt.” *laugh* “Tis a scratch.” *laugh* You don’t get the full gravity of what just happened if you didn’t see Mercutio as a fully formed character.
Paris / Peter – This one doesn’t impact the story much, it’s just confusing for the audience if they’re not familiar with the scene. There’s this guy that sometimes pops up (it’s not like either of those characters gets much stage time) and, especially as Peter, doesn’t get much introduction. So in one scene he’s asking for Juliet’s hand, and in another he’s following around Nurse as her servant. This is the stuff I think about. Who in the audience is trying to follow the story, and losing track at times like this?
Lord / Lady Capulet – One male actor played both of Juliet’s parents, and it took me a little while to understand what they were doing. At first, I thought they were doing single-parent and just giving one actor all the lines, fine. But then there’s costume / attitude / accent change and I think, two gay dads? That’d be a fun new twist. But no, the text is still mother mother mother, and we still have the “I was your age when I got married” scene and all that. So we’re still to imagine Juliet’s two parents (Romeo’s parents, by the way, are both cut completely), just portrayed by the same actor doing a different voice. Bit hard to follow, and Lord Capulet definitely gets the better end of the deal.
Tybalt / Nurse – Ok, here’s the big head scratcher. You’re going to use the same actor to represent both the arguable villain of the story (and certainly the center of all the violence), with the crazy horny old lady with no filter? Half the time I’ve seen Nurse she’s dressed in long flowing robes and looking vaguely like a nun (ironically, you’d think, given some of her comments).
Here’s our Nurse:
Slash Tybalt:
The actress did an admirable job with the role, don’t get me wrong. I question the choice to double, not the performance. When Tybalt (who is 5’11”, by the way, from her bio) enters, you get a clear feeling of, “Oh shit, Tybalt’s here, things are going to get violent.” But then with a quick costume change (often into what I believe was a sort of corset and skirt) she’s supposed to be this woman who takes care of Juliet that’s supposed to at least be old enough to be her mother but instead comes across more like the old “gay best friend” trope. Not to mention the obvious confusion where we watch Tybalt die, violently, only to then see Nurse enter, still bloody, screaming that Tybalt is dead.
Yes But How’s The Shakespeare
Not every production strives to be great Shakespeare. We speak of the difference between “Shakespeare productions” and “productions that use Shakespeare as a scaffolding from which to tell the story they want to tell.” This one’s the latter, and that’s fine. It knows its audience. They want to hear and see their young stars, and they want to laugh. They got that.
But I wanted to see some Shakespeare, too. How was it?
Well, it was chopped into pieces, as I already mentioned. No Prince. There are no Romeo’s parents, so there are no scenes with Romeo’s parents. Perhaps the most significant cut was in the whole end sequence, where guess what? Paris lives! Paris was almost an afterthought in this one, they probably would have cut him completely if he wasn’t necessary to move the plot along. There’s no scene where Nurse betrays Juliet and says to marry Paris. There is no Romeo / Paris confrontation at the end. He’s really more like a concept, here. He exists just so Lord Capulet can tell Juliet what to do.
It’s Not Delivery, It’s Digiorno
Speaking of which, let’s talk about delivery. Maybe it was the accent, but Kit Connor was the only one that felt like he was in a Shakespeare production, to me. When he was talking, I was thinking, “I’m watching Shakespeare.” When everybody else was talking I was thinking, “I’m watching people try to speak Shakespeare’s lines.”
Many of them seem to have gone to the school of shouting and pausing. If you’re angry, shout. If you’re saying something deep, pause. It gets the point across, but so does a sledgehammer. The most obvious example was the loudest line of the night….guesses, anybody? You’ll never guess it … Lord Capulet’s “But fettle your fine joints ‘gainst THURSDAY NEXT!!! … to go with Paris” I mean, he screamed those two words for some reason. But later, when talking about the play with my kids, my wife said, “Her father was really horrible to her in that scene.” He certainly got his point across.
Another weird and really out of place one came from our Romeo when he saidscreamed, “Is it even so? Then I DEFY YOU … … … stars.” I remain lost about that decision. It’s a famous line, go ahead and blast it to the back wall. But why’d stars get the short end of the stick? I don’t understand the thinking there.
I Die, Horatio
One more and then I’ll wrap it up. Oh, the ending. Ms. Zegler’s got great comic timing, no question about that. Thankfully, there’s no (intentional) going for the laugh in the final scene. But she’s got to go back to the drawing board on her death scenes. I’ve seen Nick Bottom do a better death scene. I’ve seen Bugs Bunny do a better death scene. She’s alone in the tomb with Romeo’s body. We get none of Friar Laurence running back and forth telling her to flee, it’s just cut down to “Romeo enters, Romeo dies, Juliet wakes, Juliet dies.” She finds the dagger, holds it aloft and announces, “O HAPPY DAGGER!” again so loud that I leaned over to my wife and asked, “Who is she talking to??” and runs herself through.
She then takes what felt like 20 or 30 seconds to die, grunting and groaning and staggering back and forth. Where it got ridiculous for me, though, was that they’d clearly been directed to end with some sort of tableau of her body draped across Romeo’s. Well she’s a tiny little thing and maybe she was in the wrong spot or maybe they just didn’t rehearse it enough. But with her last gasp after all that gasping and wheezing she literally leaps up and hurls herself backwards across Romeo’s body. She doesn’t collapse, she launches herself. You know that thing where you get home from school and you run into your room and you dive into it, landing backwards on a pile of stuffed animals? Basically that. Only she landed on a dead Romeo.
Wrapping It Up
Listen, I’ll never fault people for attempting Shakespeare, especially young actors with a long career ahead of them, Look at how many Shakespeare movies Claire Danes made. Actors work with what they’re given. If you told me that either of the two stars wanted to try their hand at more Shakespeare, I’d check it out. Especially if she doesn’t sing.
There are many Shakespeare movies that I know about, have written about, have seen screenshots and clips of. But sitting through all of them is a challenge for many reasons. I’m slowly chipping away at a very long list. Happily, I can now move a certified classic to the WATCHED list.
Max Reinhardt’s 1935 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream deserves its place in Shakespeare Film history. It picked up two Academy Awards (on four nominations) and featured a cast of names still known today – James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, and Mickey Rooney to name just a few. Watching it now is a weirdly nostalgic experience for a Gen Xer like me. As we get to the big hysterical finish, all I could think of was how much it reminded me of watching the Three Stooges or Little Rascals. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but if you remember those shows (even if you watched them with your parents or grandparents!), maybe you’ll see what I mean.
Let’s talk about dreams for a second. They’re used in metaphors way too often. “Oh, this new job is a dream!” We use dream to mean “the ideal thing I wanted.” Not that. I mean real dreams. Real dreams to me are more like, “Nothing makes sense, and yet I’m oddly ok with all of it. Why am I suddenly back in high school, why are my coworkers here, why is there a freestanding toilet in the middle of the auditorium stage?” While you’re in the dream and not asking any of those questions, it all seems normal. Only after you step out and wake up do you think, “Well, that was weird.”
When I thought of that analogy for this movie, I intended it to be negative, but why not make a Dream movie that feels like a dream?
Let’s Make This More Visual
I’m sure many of us have seen productions of The Winter’s Tale, famous for its “Exit, pursued by a bear” stage direction, featuring no bear.
Not so fast! The forest of Athens seems to be home to actual bears now. My best guess is that somebody spotted Helena’s line, “No, no, I am as ugly as a bear; For beasts that meet me run away for fear:” and thought, “Ok, Helena is running away from a bear.”
“Now I will believe that there are unicorns!”
Unfortunately, that’s a line from The Tempest, not Midsummer. I have no idea how this one got here. The word unicorn doesn’t appear in the play that I can find.
How Were The Fairies
Now, let’s talk about the fairies. Most of the fairy budget was spent on Titania’s retinue. They sparkle, they glow, and they have lengthy dance numbers. At one point, they’re literally floating into the sky by the dozens:
Wow! If this is the entrance for Titania, I wonder what Oberon’s entourage will look like?
Uhhh… yeah. There’s a lot of these guys. They even have a band at one point, and you seriously wonder if the original Star Wars Cantina scene got the idea from this movie.
Later, though, they do get a costume change…
For some reason that I genuinely don’t understand, they suddenly all have wings. Black, scary wings. It’s very much like the part in The Tempest when Ariel suddenly transforms into a Fury, but I don’t recall such a scene in Midsummer. Just all of a sudden, they went from “little people in Halloween masks” to “I don’t know what’s going on but I don’t like it, keep those things away from me.”
What of our stars, Oberon and Titania?
Oberon gets the better deal here. Titania gets to sigh and oooh and ahhh with hand on cheek a lot. She sounds a great deal like Glinda from Wizard of Oz. Oberon, meanwhile, is a walking special effect. Not only does he have this cool crown of branches (that, in fairness, reminds me of Groot from the Marvel movies), but he’s always surrounded by stars. This is another one of those dream-like things. Why are there stars around him? How are they there? Are they actual fireflies? Are they really there or an illusion? If he swatted at them would they move? We don’t get any answers, of course. This is just how he goes about life.
But that’s ok, Titania gets to one-up her Oberon…
Titania flies wherever she wants. Oberon rides a horse. Again, there’s that dream world logic. Some people fly, some walk, some ride horses. But, are you ready for this?
Oberon can fly, too. SO WHY IS HE RIDING A HORSE?
The Mickey Rooney Show
You can tell how old someone is by how they remember Mickey Rooney, a wonderful actor with a record-breaking career that includes credited roles in 10 decades, from the 1920s to the 2010s.
As our Puck, he was just 14 years old and honestly does a spectacular job for someone so young. There’s a lot of creative license in how to play Puck, and Rooney plays to his strengths. He’s a child, running around and causing mischief. When he’s in the mood to act like an animal, he makes animal noises. When he finds things entertaining, he laughs with genuine glee. When an adult tells him what to do, he enthusiastically goes about trying to do it properly, though he doesn’t always succeed. All while delivering a lot of Shakespeare, in makeup and costume. Sometimes he flies. According to the trivia he actually spent much of production with a broken leg and had to be wheeled around the set!
Experience It For Yourself
Honestly, just see this one if you can. There are places where you really think you’re watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and the entertainment is to be found in mocking how bad it is (seriously, I can’t do justice to the “goblin fairies’). There are random ballet sequences just inserted at will. The special effects deserve their own award for just how broad a spectrum they covered. People fly, people fade in and out of existence, Bottom transforms back and forth before our eyes. Then there are the dimestore masks, and this fairy being carried off into the sunset:
I repeat, it’s like a dream. When it’s done you’re left thinking, “What in the world was that? Did it make sense or not? I can’t really tell.”
I suppose the official title of this production is “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, directed by Joel Coen and starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand in the title roles, but that’s too much to fit in a title. You all no doubt know which production I’m referring to. Though it came out in 2021, I’ve finally sat down to watch the entire thing.
If you are a student of the art of film-making, you’re probably going to love this. It’s one of those final products that is all about the director’s vision, regardless of what actors he had to work with or what source material they spoke. Every scene is clearly driven by, “Ok, I want it to look like this.”
For my part, I hate that. Shakespeare, to me, is all about the character. Why are the characters speaking to each other the way that they do? What’s their backstory, their motivation? Why are they making the choices that they make? I can get that on a bare stage with no costumes. I don’t need special effects.
Seriously, who was their architect? What if they did have kids? That’s so dangerous.
Worse, I think that the visual backflips in this version are disjointed and distracting. Like when Macbeth and Banquo have first encountered the witches (more on this in a moment) and get to the line “Whither are they vanished? Into thin air…” but they are still right there. Or when the murderers set Macduff’s castle fully ablaze in a matter of seconds, just so we can get the image of people falling into the flames. Don’t get me started on the MC Escher-esque castle that the Macbeths live in. It’s like they borrowed some scenery from David Bowie’s Labyrinth.
Starring Kathryn Hunter as The Witches
Let’s talk about the witch(es) for a moment because clearly, she/they are the best part of the production. I would see a one-person show of just this performance. Kathryn Hunter alone plays the witches. Is she playing one, then, or three? Or one body housing three spirits? Yes, I guess, to all the things. If she didn’t play it so well, I’d be taking serious issue with the inconsistency in the presentation. Sometimes, she’s just one person speaking in three (or more?) voices. Other times, she splits into three. Or, she’s one body casting three reflections or shadows. She’s also a bit of a contortionist, which only adds to the otherworldliness of the whole performance. When I first started watching this at home on my laptop, my son walked by and said, “What the hell is that? That’s terrifying.”
I’d watch a one-person show of that because the other actors have no choice but to break the illusion. Why does Macbeth refer to “them” in the plural when there’s just one person there? Something like that leaps off the screen and pulls me out of the moment. It’s a minor thing, I suppose. It just feels disjointed, as I mentioned above. It is as if the director is saying, “Yes, I know what the script says, but I know what I want the visual to be, even if they don’t match!”
Bring It Home, Denzel
Even if the director didn’t care much about how the actors played their parts, they still had to find something to work with. Though I admit I wasn’t hanging on every word, I liked parts of Washington’s performance, such as Macbeth. His explanation of killing Duncan’s guards can be summed up as “Sometimes I get into this weird mood where I randomly kill people, I can’t explain it,” and it is the implied, “Would you like to be next?” that cranks up the tension. Everybody probably wonders precisely what happened, but they know they’d better not question it too deeply.
Toward the end, I also enjoyed the way he played his assumed immortality to a point. Everything’s falling apart around him; most of the witches’ prophecies have come true, yet he’s still almost laughing at it all, believing himself to be invincible. His speech to Young Siward is a cross between a serial killer and a Marvel supervillain. Unfortunately, this is ruined by a ridiculous fight scene, but I’ll take what I can get.
See It Or Skip It?
I’ll end how I started. If you’re a fan of the art of filmmaking, this is a great example. You can pause at any point and break down why the director wanted that scene to look like it does. It’s disorienting 100% of the time. There are claustrophobic shots, there are shots looking straight down. There’s nothing extra in any of the scenes, it often feels like bare stage. For me, though, I think that takes away from the Shakespeare. Shakespeare didn’t make any of those decisions, Joel Coen did. Which is fine if your plan is to go see the Coen version of Macbeth. But I’m more about the actors, I wanted to see more of Denzel Washington’s Macbeth. I got some. I liked some. I just wish it was more about the words and the actors and not the visuals.
I want to say our Commonwealth Shakespeare streak continues, but we actually missed a show in 2019 when my mom was sick. Cymbeline, which I’ve never seen, but have no real personal feelings for. Other than that hiccup, the 2024 show marks 19 shows we’ve seen by this group at this location. We also missed back in 2005. Hamlet, which I’m still salty about.
I have no special love for The Winter’s Tale, a later and therefore lesser-known play, filled with difficult to pronounce characters (Autolycus? Perdita? Polixenes?) and the usual kitchen-sink of Shakespearean comedy switcheroos. I tend to only refer to it to make a rapidly aging joke about how it’s Shakespeare’s Maury Povich Show. Leontes, you are the father!
Seriously, though, quick plot summary for those who need it. This is really two plays smooshed together at the end. Leontes and Polixenes, kings of neighboring nations, are long time best friends. Leontes becomes paranoid that Polixenes got Leontes’ wife, Hermione, pregnant. Polixenes flees the country, Leontes jails his pregnant wife for treason. The Oracle says that Leontes is wrong, they’re innocent, Leontes still clings to his paranoid belief even after his son and wife both die of grief. He refuses to take care of his new baby daughter and demands that she be left somewhere to survive on her own if that’s what the gods want. That’s our first story.
The second half leaps forward 16 years — Shakespeare literally makes “Time” a character who comes out to talk to the audience — and we meet teenage Perdita, whose been raised by the kindle shepherd that found her. Perdita’s in love with Florizel, son of Polixenes. Polixenes is having none of it, however, as he will only allow his son to marry a princess. See where it’s all going? This is a Shakespearean comedy, so as I always tell people with a handwave, “hijinx ensue.” All is straightened out in the end, Perdita reunites with her father, she gets to be with Florizel because now we know she’s a princess … and oh hey look, Hermione comes back from the dead. That’s Shakespeare for you.
So how was this particular production? Let’s start with some pictures! Click on individual pictures to expand.
A very pregnant Hermione pleads her innocence to her husband LeontesI loved Camillo, he gave some real Gonzago from The Tempest vibes.Hermione on trial.Poor Antigonus was caught between a paranoid and vindictive king, and a bear.Time, who is supposed to make the second half less confusing?I didn’t understand surrounding Polixenes in mirrors but it looked cool.Perdita and Florizel looking like we borrowed some costumes from HAIR.
I quite loved it, honestly. I was afraid that my family would not be able to follow it very well, for all the reasons I listed above. You can barely figure out from moment to moment who is who, much less what’s happening. But from the opening scene, they had it just right. Leontes was clearly a jealous man driven to near insanity as his paranoia consumed him. It’s quite dark. We’re at a comedy, this king has been presented with his baby daughter, and he’s literally screaming, “Throw it in the fire.” The music was ominous. It was scary, as it perhaps should be, to set up the second half.
The women – Hermione and her friend Paulina – pretty much stole the show. Both did an outstanding job of standing on a stage full of men, knowing full well that they’re entirely powerless, and yet speaking their minds in full voice, with heads held high. You knew that they had been wronged, and waited for the men to get what was coming to them.
The longer I go with these the more uncomfortable I get because I don’t want to misrepresent anyone, or leave anyone out. So what I’ll do this year is leave a link to the play info so people can explore the individual artists’ stories in their own words rather than mine:
