The Winter's Tale dir. by Rob Melrose

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Winter's Taledir. by Rob Melrose Elizabeth Klett The Winter's TalePresented by the Alley Theatre on the Hubbard Stage, Houston, Texas. 09 13- 10 13, 2019. Directed by Rob Melrose. Set design by Michael Locher. Costume design by Raquel Barreto. Lighting design by Cat Tate Starmer. Sound design by Cliff Caruthers. With Elijah Alexander (Leontes), Tiffany Rachelle Stewart (Hermione), Juan Sebastián Cruz (Mamillius), Margaret Ivey (Perdita), Shawn Hamilton (Camillo), Todd Waite (Antigonus), Christopher Salazar (Cleomenes/Archidamus/Autolycus), Melissa Molano (Dion/Dorcas), Elizabeth Bunch (Paulina), Melissa Pritchett (Emilia/Mopsa), Chris Hutchison (Polixenes), Jay Sullivan (Florizel), David Rainey (Shepherd), Dylan Godwin (Clown), and Mike Whitebread (Musician). Attending The Winter's Taleat the Alley Theatre on the night after yet another tropical storm flooded Houston and the surrounding region, I understood director Rob Melrose's desire to emphasize the play's themes of renewal and hope in the face of loss. Set in both a realistic Houston penthouse and a mythical West Texas, the production employed the talents of the Alley's Resident Acting Company to create a local take on Shakespeare's late romance. Using Mamillius as an interlocutor, it asserted that emotional and literal tempests can not only be endured, but can be remade through the power of storytelling. [End Page 125] Melrose allowed Mamillius to survive and to take charge of how the tale was told, providing a striking contrast with recent productions of the play which have used Mamillius (particularly in the final scene) as a reminder of what cannot be recovered from the wreckage of Leontes's jealousy. He appeared as a young boy (although played by a winsome adult actor) in Western gear in the opening scene. Pulling cowboy dolls from a large toy box, Mamillius enlisted Archidamus to play with him, miming the dolls shooting each other while he ran around the stage. Mamillius continued to play with dolls throughout the production; in 2.1 he sat down cozily with Hermione on a large bed to use dolls to tell his "sad tale" (2.1.27). From that point on, his dolls mirrored the action onstage, as he pulled tiny replicas of all the main characters from the box and mimed them talking to each other. He was not present for every scene: for instance, he remained offstage for Hermione's trial, and his death was announced by a lord. However, he subsequently appeared holding Hermione's hand for Antigonus's narration of his dream, and broke free to pull a stuffed bear from the box to menace a toy Antigonus, yelling, "Exit, pursued by a bear!" His actions affected the real Antigonus, who ran offstage shrieking in terror. It was evident that Mamillius had not only evaded death, but was also in control of the story, at least in part. Melrose extended this impression by adding a brief scene to the top of the second half, in which Mamillius was laid out as though for a wake. Leontes and Paulina paid their respects by laying flowers on his folded hands. When they exited, however, Mamillius leapt up playfully and put a finger to his lips, enlisting the audience in his game of playing dead. He then performed the Time speech, shifting the temporal and spatial scene to "fair Bohemia" (4.1.21), and introducing Florizel and Perdita. He remained on the fringes of the action with his dolls for much of the second half, sometimes directly intervening, as when he sang and danced with Autolycus. He was noticeably absent, however, for the statue scene, in order for Melrose to create a coda for the production. After the end of Shakespeare's text, Mamillius entered to facilitate a scene change that recreated 2.1, in which he began telling his tale to Hermione. This time, when Leontes came in, it became clear that Mamillius decided to change the story: instead of forcefully separating mother and child, Leontes joined the family group and embraced them, resigning his jealous suspicions in favor of a fully happy ending. While this conclusion appeared to recuperate the damage done by Leontes's actions through an assertion of the storyteller's ability to revise...