The Timeless Tale and the Fable

This past Saturday yielded the excellent opportunity to view Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, performed live on stage by the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, Utah. Needless to say, it was a great experience. I will list some of the thoughts that I had concerning the play, and then say a little about what struck me the most about this presentation of The Winter's Tale.

• I really enjoyed the slightly more modern style of the costumes. Many of those that attended the play with me have shared similar sentiments. It certainly gave an interesting perspective on things. Perhaps it even made the story more believable. It's hard to take Leontes seriously when, in our minds, he is a crazy, maddened king wearing tights, a cape, and rather large, poofy sleeves. But as a respectable gentleman in a tux, maybe he is given a small dose of believability.
• One of my very favorite aspects of this presentation was the set. It was very minimalistic and reminded me of an avant-garde piano performance. It was simply a dark stage with some large wooden panels hanging behind the stage, giving the appearance of stone, or indicating the palace at Sicilia. Occasionally some props were brought in, such as a chair or small end table indicating the space of the scene: a bedroom, the dungeon, etc. In the second act, these slats were removed and on the stage was laid some green carpet representing the grass of the shepherds' dwelling. Very minimal. The focus was on the story and the acting. I liked that.
• I very much enjoyed the stark difference between the two halves the play. The whimsical, colorful snowflakes did a wonderful job creating an air of fantasy in the second half.

These are just a few observations. The most striking aspect to me, however, was the overall timelessness of the play. The modern style (relatively so, it reminded me more of the time period in which the Phantom of the Opera takes place—perhaps a late nineteenth, early twentieth century look?) juxtaposed with the old story along with the minimalist set seemed to take away anything anchoring the play to a specific time. Obviously, some of the characters implied a timeframe—Autolycus seemed quite typical of a renaissance bard when he was peddling his ballads to the family of shepherds—but even they, at times, changed their clothes or behavior and began to transcend those boundaries.

I am reminded of the sort of thing occasionally done in film to create a sense of timelessness using costumes, props and settings that cannot be properly categorized into a specific era. Take, for example, A Series of Unfortunate Events. There are cars, cells phones, etc., but the setting itself seems be in a nonexistent yet gothic era sort of place. It really has no time period; a quality that, I think, can be very powerful. (I may be biased; I'm a real sucker for these types of films.)

A Series of Unfortunate Events, via twynkle.com.

But what really hit the timelessness of The Winter's Tale home for me was the final scene, after everyone exits, and Leontes remains on stage for a moment, looking thoughtful, then glances upward as snow begins to fall. Finally, he exits. The snow falling in the final scene was the kicker. I really had just watched a winter's tale, for as Mamillius had said, "A sad tale is best for winter." And it was a sad tale. Yes, Hermione was back, but Mamillius wasn't. Sixteen years had been needlessly lost. But, the end was still happy. It was bittersweet. The snow falling made me think, and made me realize that The Winter's Tale truly is a fable. It is a story of consequences. And nothing told me that more than the meta, self-referential snow falling on Leontes as he exited the stage, reunited with his wife and daughter, but lacking still his son—and perhaps more even than that.