Winter<$> in Summer
The designers trump the performers in this year's Shakespeare in the Park production
by Martin Brady
The Winter's Tale
Presented through Sept. 4 by the
Nashville Shakespeare Festival
For this summer's Shakespeare in the Park production, the Nashville Shakespeare Festival presents The Winter's Tale, a curious story about a king (Jeremy Childs) who believes his wife (Denice Hicks) is carrying on with his boyhood friend (Randall Lancaster). Jealousy spurs the ruler into bitter action, and he orders his advisor (Herbert Mark Parker) to have the couple killed, while further mandating an infelicitous end for his infant daughter (whom he fears might not really be his).
Tennessee Repertory Theatre's David Alford directs the show, and he brings with him gifted Rep designers, who prove to be the production's most valuable players. Much-needed moments of theatricality come courtesy of set designer Gary Hoff, lighting designer Elizabeth Deem, costumer Trish Clark and sound designer Paul Carrol Binkley. String quartet interludes provide a warmth that juxtaposes nicely with an appropriately cool white setting, and creative lighting changes, including a lovely blast of purple, help to frame the action, as actors move to and fro in attractive, classically conceived costumes.
The darkness of Act 1, punctuated by Childs' agitated tirades, is balanced by a mostly playful Act 2, which features the comic high jinks of a roguish peddler (Matt Chiorini) and a shepherd's clownish son (Josh Childs). Fate brings together young lovers (Emily Landham and Ted Welch), and miraculous doings restore the kingdom to harmony.
Brian Webb Russell plays Time, a device that allows Shakespeare to cover gaps between missing years. He bangs his staff on the stage with authority, cues the action apace and conducts the movement of the Elementals, ghostly choral characters enacted by the NSF's apprentices.
Stella Reed is the chief defender of the queen's virtue and the agent provocateur of the play's mystical denouement. She moves well and has a full-bodied vocal tone, but for whatever reason (bad diction? bad sound?) it was easy to miss about half of her lines.
The Winter's Tale has its share of slyly inverted language, which the cast handles passably well. But in general, their performances seem labored, unable to juice what is already an improbable and sentimental script. Under Alford's direction, the comedic turns often read more smug than whimsical (or maybe they're just downright corny and tiresome). Legitimate laughs prove elusive, though Chiorini works hard at playing his mandolin and singing in an overblown style that vaguely recalls Bill Murray's old Saturday Night Live lounge act.
This isn't riveting theater, except when the scenes change. It isn't embarrassing, either, but an awful lot of promise goes unfulfilled—especially given the amount of talent involved.
The opening of the show was almost overshadowed by the announcement that Denice Hicks is returning to her former position as artistic director of the NSF. In her first tenure, Hicks mounted some interesting shows, a few of which experimented quite freely with the Bard. During her absence from the festival, she directed and acted in local theaters, and even staged revues at Dollywood. Hicks has a longstanding professional relationship with NSF founder and board chair Donald Capparella, and she's been affiliated with the company in one capacity or another since 1990.
On one level, the move makes sense—Hicks is a known commodity, familiar throughout the theater community, respected for her many contributions as artist and teacher. Or maybe it's a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.
It isn't imperative that a brand-new face commandeer this 18-year-old Nashville institution; the most important thing is that Nashville Shakespeare Festival maintain a steady course. Nevertheless, the Hicks rehire suggests the organization is turning inward. It's unclear if this move has anything to do with the tenure of recent AD Steve Cardamone, who left Music City quietly at the end of 2004, claiming a legacy of one competent version of Romeo and Juliet and one controversial mounting of The Comedy of Errors. Mixed results aside, Cardamone showed a genuine desire to make the Bard intelligible to the average theatergoer.
Whatever issues surrounded Cardamone's unobtrusive departure, we should never believe that our local theatrical world is so narrow as to preclude the potential for new voices and new ideas. Diversity of opinion and artistic approach is imperative for any arts scene. That said, we can only wish Hicks a creative and productive new stint with NSF.
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