The Winter’s Tale
Playwright: William Shakespeare Director: Max Webster
Whenever I see a production promising “a uniquely Scottish take” on a play, it “fills me with dread”, said Simon Thompson on Whatsonstage.com. It’s often shorthand for “lowest-common-denominator cliché”. Thankfully, Max Webster’s production sidesteps that trap, but his Scottish interpretation still falls short. Webster has transposed the action of Shakespeare’s play from “urbane” Sicily and “rustic” Bohemia to modern-day Edinburgh and Fife – the former full of “minimalist furnishings and refined conversation”, the latter a “technicolour riot”. The contrast works well, highlighting the Scottish capital’s “selfimportant view of itself”. However, Webster’s other major change – “translating” the Fife dialogue into Scots – is less successful. The Scots language it employs veers “dangerously far from Shakespeare”, and jokes about Nicola Sturgeon and the posh Edinburgh suburb of Morningside “would be more at home in the annual panto”.
“The contrasts drawn between the two settings are too crude to be especially illuminating,” agreed Allan Radcliffe in The Times. So credit to the leads, who manage to “restore emotional integrity to this notoriously fragmented tale”. John Michie brilliantly conveys Leontes’ “agonising transition from jealous tyrant to remorseful penitent”, and Maureen Beattie is on top form as Paulina, the noblewoman who stays loyal to Hermione (Frances Grey) in the face of Leontes’ false accusations of adultery. The only “sour note”, said David Kettle on Theartsdesk.com, is the “unpleasant whiff of urban disdain” for Jimmy Chisholm’s “tracksuited, shopping trolleypushing peddler Autolycus”. “We’re definitely laughing at him, not with him.”
I found the whole production “rich and rewarding”, said Mark Fisher in The Guardian. By making the nobleman Camillo a female character, Webster sets up a fascinating “head-and-heart battle between the masculine and feminine”, as “all the forces lined up against Leontes” are women. And with Leontes stuck in his own “personal echo chamber”, hearing “only what he wants to hear”, it all feels strikingly relevant for today’s political climate.