Theatre review: The Winter's Tale (RSC/RST)

Having clawed her way off my list of creatives I avoid like the plague with a decent Macbeth and a very good King Lear, Yaël Farber now makes her RSC debut by continuing her successful recent strategy of tackling Shakespeare plays where not having a sense of humour is not really an obstacle. Yes, I know The Winter's Tale is officially classed as a comedy, but you know as well as I do that having one scene where a con-man (Trevor Fox) pickpockets a hot young shepherd (Ryan Duval) doesn't make it a laugh riot, any more than having a scene where a porter does a dozen puns about equivocation doesn't make Macbeth a knockabout farce. The story of two kings who violently turn on members of their own family, Sicilia's Leontes (Transphobia Inc Employee Bertie Carvel) has been best friends with his Bohemian counterpart Polixenes (John Light) since childhood.

They even start the play playfully wrestling, in the latest instalment of Topless John Light Making Things Homoerotic In Kind Of A Weird Way, but the tiniest trigger makes Leontes suspect his friend of having an affair with his wife Hermione (Madeline Appiah,) which he's retrospectively decided means the child she's pregnant with isn't his.

The opening acts of The Winter's Tale are consumed with this irrational jealousy and the violent consequences on the whole kingdom when the ruler's sanity leaves him in such an abrupt fashion, and it can make it an oppressive experience. It's pretty much the case here, although unusually for somebody who's in the past drawn plays out well over their usual running time, Farber manages to have the story clip past at a decent pace - helped by the decision to have Fox's Autolycus double as Time, making him a broader narrator figure who can speed us through some of the exposition.

Aïcha Kossoko storming her way onto the stage when she first appears suggests she's well aware that Paulina is Shakespeare's biggest badass, Raphael Sowole and Matthew Flynn bring decency and urgency to the two advisors desperately trying to stop the king before he does something he can't undo, and there's a particularly striking visual when Hermione starts leaking breastmilk during her showtrial, reminding us she's been forcibly removed from her newborn. But while I've seen much worse it's still a pretty static Sicilia that didn't always convince me I needed to keep my eyes open for all of it.

It's clear that the production's biggest ideas are saved for the second half, when after a 16-year time-jump the focus shifts to Leontes and Hermione's lost daughter Perdita (Leah Haile,) prophesied to be the one who can heal the rifts between family and friends. Given Farber's love of movement and ritual it's not entirely surprising that the Act 4 country fair is reimagined as a slightly sinister harvest festival - the standard issue Farber chorus of wailing women have a touch of the Bacchae about them, as if their dances (choreography by Imogen Knight to intense music by Max Perryment) could get out of control at any moment.

Perdita's love interest Florizel can come off as a bit of a nonentity so having Lewis Bowes make his first appearance in just black boxers helps make him memorable - introducing his and Perdita's relationship as a sexual one from the start also fits into the general tone of an unbridled, wild physical world rather than a twee rural idyll.

Soutra Gilmour's set is dominated by a huge moon, giving an overall idea that everything from Leontes' lunacy to the frantic dances could be linked by natural forces driving the humans to unpredictable behaviour, but this does feel most strongly expressed in the countryside scenes. The particular brand of wildness in the woods is the one major idea that stands out, but with this play's tendency to get drawn out I appreciated the briskness with which the production tied things up once we returned to Sicilia.

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare is booking until the 30th of August at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.