The most famous stage direction in theater history shows up in act three, scene three of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. If you’re a Shakespeare nut, you already know what I’m talking about: “Exit, pursued by bear.”
The character exiting is Antigonus, a loyal courtier assigned to rid the jealous Leontes of the daughter his suspected dallying wife Hermione has only just delivered. Refusing to carry out the death sentence, Antigonus has decided to abandon the infant in the wild, when he’s spotted by a voracious bear.
As Shakespeare advocates know and cherish, the command in parentheses offers a challenge to every director who’s ever taken on the play—as well as it’s makes for a sequence that Bardolators eagerly wait for.
Those of us who’ve seen any number of Winter’s Tale bear-man skirmishes have obviously seen any number of Antigonuses exiting pursued by any number of bear stand-ins. I can’t say I’ve ever attended a Winter’s Tale where a real live bear was cast, but I can say that of all the play’s incarnations I’ve attended, this is the most entertaining depiction of the woeful meeting.
Yes, Arin Arbus, who continually shows a magical hand with Shakespeare, has come up with the best ursine pursuit yet. Part of the reason is that Antigonus doesn’t exit immediately with bear pursuing. Oh, no, this Antigonus (Oberon K. A. Adjepong) decides he won’t retreat immediately on seeing the sudden menace.
This Antigonus is instantly committed—possibly because he’s intent on safeguarding the swaddled baby—to giving the bear as good as he gets. (Comic actor Arnie Burton is inside the costume.) The confronting two do a hilarious kick-the-shins dance before Antigonus turns and flees, unsuccessfully as the audience later learns.
For Shakespeare lovers, those who dote on every inspired moment this or that director and actor(s) come up with in any of the plays, this “Exit, pursued by bear” fight will be entirely worth the admission—a not-to-be missed, maybe only-once-in-a-lifetime take. Incidentally, Arbus is so enamored of the bear that she precedes act one with the bear arriving to tread the thrust stage ominously.
There are, however, other reasons to catch this revival, even if it’s not absolutely top-drawer Arbus. What it is is an elegant presentation of the late play, one of the works Shakespeare was writing in his forties and early fifties at a time when he seemed to be reconsidering how harshly he had treated earlier tragic figures.
In The Winter’s Tale, he brings on the uxorious Leontes (Anatol Yusef), who, quite like Othello, turns on a dime against queen Hermione (Kelley Curran) when he thinks she’s sweet on his best pal and fellow monarch Polixenes (Dion Mucciacito).
In Shakespeare’s romance about death (pretty much covering the first half of the play) and rebirth (pretty much covering the second half), things work out better for Leontes than they do for the Moor. The same goes for the now 15-year-old Perdita (Nicole Rodenburg). In an unmissable allusion to the doomed Ophelia, she dispenses rue and other blooms to the disguised Polixenes. Unlike Ophelia, Perdita—given a very princess-y attitude by Rodenburg—emerges the better for the flower disposal.
The production’s elegance is quickly established through Riccardo Hernandez’s austere set. It’s dominated by a high grey upstage wall that features an arched opening through which a gorgeous overcast sky is often glimpsed. That’s the background for Leontes’ staid Sicilia. When the locale changes to the Perdita-Florizel (Eddie Ray Jackson) Bohemia, Arbus has a generous supply of green leaves drop from above and lighting designer Marcus Doshi paints the wall an early-spring celadon.
To some degree with this Winter’s Tale, “staid” is the order of the day. Although it’s unwise to suggest any contemporary Shakespeare outing is too well spoken, it may not be going too far to report that these performers too often speak the lines with such deliberation that the tale threatens to take on the weight of a saga.
This is common to Yusef, Mucciacito and that echelon and also to the clowns—Burton (out of the bear drag and appearing as the devious Autolycus) and John Keating as the Old Shepherd and Ed Malone as Clown, his son. The only exceptions to the prevailing thesping are Mahira Kakkar as a clever Paulina and young Eli Rayman as Mamillius.
Although there’s much to be said in favor of the production, the spontaneity that would lift its spirits to a freer plane somehow gives way more than necessary to actors doing too much acting.
The Winter’s Tale opened March 25, 2018, at Polonsky Shakespeare Center and runs through April 15. Tickets and information: tfana.org
