Seasons Change In Folger's A Winter's Tale

Never is the contrast between comedy and tragedy so pronounced in Shakespeare as with The Winter's Tale.

Once the dancing and colorful costumes come out during Act 2, we're in for a whole new play than the brooding, horrifying first half would lead us to believe. After all, we've just seen a king develop a seemingly out-of-nowhere obsession that his wife is cheating on him, and then take drastic measures to punish her for it. Revelry and laughter don't seem the next natural progression.

Folger's production does an excellent job of playing up the play's duality. Things start off appropriately atmospheric, with a dark, snow-flecked set and eerily lit soliloquies by Daniel Stewart as King Leontes. Later, spring is market by sprouting sunflowers, brighter skies, young star-crossed lovers and explosively decked peasants (though the borderline psychedelic costumes can be almost distracting in their garishness).

Bridging the gap is the storyteller construction set up by narrator Lawrence Redmond as a father-figure Antigonus and Zophia Pryzby as his young audience (the pair also deftly and creatively enact the Bard's most infamous stage direction, "Exit, pursued by a bear"). As redemption for Leontes draws nearer, A Winter's Tale eventually begins to earn its reputation as a magical adult fairy tale, but it's the depth of the king's offenses that resonate the most in Folger's production.