A Winter's Tale

Time Out says

Mon Oct 8 2012

In Ignace Cornelissen's feisty play-within-a-play, bickering friends Ben, Ginny, Sam and Kae are trying to put on a production of Shakespeare's 'The Winter's Tale', carrying the audience along with them through the highs and lows of their creative journey.

It's a fun way to frame the story of King Leontes's jealousy over the innocent relationship between his wife Hermione and friend Polixenes (here, King Freddy, Queen Tamara and King Tunde). Life imitates art as love, jealousy, grief and guilt prove to be as much a part of the performers' lives as the lives of the characters they play. Revealingly, Ben Caplan's 'Ben' (who takes the role of King Freddy) is alone in remaining in costume during the curtain call.

Director Purni Morell turns what could be a complex, intertextual plot into a simplified but condescension-free adaptation of Shakespeare's play for seven to ten-year-olds. The use of straightforward props to signal the changing roles, and the fantastic minimalist set of a silk sheet for everything from the sea to a forest and a prison, allows the audience to use their imaginations to engage with the production.

This is a genuinely witty introduction to Shakespeare, crafted at every stage with the needs of its young audience in mind.