Sad Tale for Winter

"THOU METTEST with things dying, I with things new-born!" With this stirring line "The Winter's Tale" shifts from the wintry tragedy of its first part to the vernal romance of its second. Ripping apart the links of that Great Chain of Being with disease and death in the first acts, the play reassembles them with health and life in the last ones. The Loeb Ex version of this mythic renewal breathes life, but not robust good health.

The director, his cast and crew all appreciate the contrived yet atavistic cycle of the tale and the pleasure which it can effect. Yet somehow that understanding alone is inadequate to the task of captivating an audience for a winter's eve.

One wonders as the convoluted plot unfolds what drew the director to this particular Shakespearean romance: he seems to have made only the effort necessary to relate its story. He falls short of animating the tale with any original scheme of reading or staging.

The production's overall atmosphere, neither tragic nor pastoral, settles somewhere in the netherworld of the mundane. A fairly simple set is not quite bare enough to avoid being distractingly eclectic. Nice touches, such as burning torches in the king's chambers and a flower-bedecked arbor in Bohemia, are offset by haphazard positioning of the settings and the action. The climactic resurrection of Hermione is blunted by clumsy staging. Though occasional flute passages are delightful, the music is generally sloppy.

The cast appears uniformly sympathetic to the action, though a lack of attention to details detracts from several performances. (Slouched posture and excessive foot stamping do not contribute to the majesty of the two kings.) Jeremiah Riemer as the rogue Autolycus is a particularly entertaining miscreant and Robert Cohen is deft in the role of a faithful courtier. Other actors's readings are often engaging and effective--Charles Genrich's rustic Clearius and Eleni Constantine's dewy-eyed Perdita add sparkle to the humorous second portion of the play.

To make whole what Shakespeare halved into tragedy and romance "The Winter's Tale" needs a bit more life than one mettest with at the Ex.