The Winter’s Tale falters at Lenox

 David Begelman , Theater Critic

Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” leaning on a plot in Robert Greene’s “Pandosto: The Triumph of Time,” was probably authored in 1611. It was among a late cycle of dramas which, like “Pericles,” “Cymbeline,” and “The Tempest” are called “romances.”  A mixture of tragic and comic elements, they were inspired by stories originating in ancient Greece that tell of wanderers, heroes who escape disaster, shepherds frolicking about the countryside, and star-crossed lovers who are separated before finally being united.

The play’s action is driven by a delusion of Leontes, King of Sicilia, that his wife, Hermione, has been having an affair with his long-time friend, Polixenes, king of Bohemia. The latter has been a visitor at court, and Leontes is convinced his queen is pregnant with his friend’s child.

Things go from bad to worse. Leontes tries to have Polixenes poisoned, puts Hermione on trial for treason, banishes her newborn babe to the hinterlands, and receives news that his young son Maximilius has died. Apollo sends the monarch glum tidings from the Delphic oracle that he has screwed up royally. But it’s the death of his son and collapse of his wife in court that takes the wind out of his paranoia, resulting in his abject contrition.

In director Kevin G. Coleman’s present staging of the play, the gloomy court of Sicilia is bedecked in black, white, and reddish sets and costumes, while walk-on performers strike stationary poses on stage. They also have problems aplenty speaking the King’s English. Only Jonathan Epstein as Leontes seemed suffused with believable emotion after the onset of a psychosis that erupts all too complacently for “an infection of my brains.”

The production makes a spirited effort to enliven things in the kingdom of Polixenes (Johnny Lee Davenport). The switch to an upbeat atmosphere in this realm is clear in Shakespeare’s play. Bohemia abounds in peasants, shepherds, and all around merriment. Except in this production, the jollity escalates into a fracas in which peasants have at each other as if they were in a street rumble.

Comic relief comes in the form of Autolycus (Jason Asprey), a self-professed “snapper-up of unconsidered trifles”—in short, a thief. He pilfers money from a wandering clown who turns out to be the son of the Old Shepherd (Malcolm Ingram). The latter has reared Perdita (Kelly Galvin) from infancy. She is in reality Leontes’ abandoned babe. Asprey lightened things up considerably, although by being on the manicky side, there was a loss of some of his dialogue

Hermione (Elizabeth Aspenlieder) usually is played as a woman who, although victimized by her husband’s jealous rage, still retains her dignity—even when on trial for her life. Aspenlieder’s interpretation of the role emphasized more the character’s crumbling under pressure, a quite different spin. Improbably, she sported a funky blond Shirley Temple wig that struck a frivolous note for a luckless queen.

Current productions at Shakespeare and Company use audience aisles to some advantage, although the interplays with the audience get to be on the slapstick side.

“The Winter’s Tale” continues through September 5 at the Founders’ Theatre, Shakespeare and Company, 70 Kemble St., Lenox, Mass. Performances are Tuesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $14-$85, and can be purchased by calling the box office at 413-637-3353, or contacting www.shakespeare.org,