Shakespeare’s soulful play to be streamed worldwide
Rehearsed reading of one of Shakespeare’s most soulful plays,
The Winter’s Tale, will be streamed worldwide from Sands Films Studio, Rotherhithe, on Saturday July 31 at 7.30pm.
This will be the first SHAKE Festival production that’s streamed live from a theatre rather than via Zoom.
The cast includes Helen Adie (Lady in Waiting/ Dorcas/Lord), Ben Elder (Cleomenes/Gaoler/Mariner/Mopsa), Tim Fitzhigham (Autolycus), Alistair Hall (The Clown), Charlotte Hamblin (Hermione), Maia Jemmett (Perdita), Malachy King (various), Katherine MacRae (Emilia/Dorcas), Michael Mears (Antigonus/ Third Gentleman), Pamela Miles (Time/Chorus), Wendy Morgan (Paulina), Mark Quartley (Leontes), Louis B Rhone (First Servant/Lord), David Sturzaker (Polixenes), Barnaby Taylor (Florizel) and Leo Wringer (Camillo) with music from Finn Collinson and Oliver Wass.
SHAKE festival artistic director Jenny Caron Hall said: “We’re very happy to bring our company together in person. It’s our first production away from Zoom. We’re excited to be performing in a theatre, and happy that the audiences will be able to watch our production of The Winter’s Tale from the comfort and safety of home.”
Music for the play is by Oliver Wass and Finn Collinson.
Directed by Jenny Hall, The Winter’s Tale follows her rehearsed readings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Dan Stevens and Rebecca Hall, Sonnets and Carols with Harriet Walter and Janet Suzman and The Tempest with Geraldine James and Rebecca Hall.
SHAKE Festival began at The Cut arts centre in Halesworth, Suffolk in 2019 as a two-day celebration of Shakespeare.
Unable to hold a festival since the pandemic began, they’ve been producing online play readings instead.
The Winter’s Tale was originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although
it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare’s late romances.
Some critics consider it to be one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama while the last two acts are comic and provide a happy ending. It sits alongside Measure for Measure in this category.
The play has been intermittently popular, revived in productions in various forms and adaptations by some of the leading theatre practitioners in Shakespearean performance history, beginning after a long interval with David Garrick in his adaptation Florizel and Perdita, first performed in 1753.
The Winter’s Tale was revived again in the 19th century, when the fourth “pastoral” act was widely popular.
In the second half of the 20th century, The Winter’s Tale in its entirety, and drawn largely from the First Folio text, was often performed.
Famous RSC productions have included many famous actors playing the jealous Leontes by Eric Porter in 1960, Ian McKellen in 1976, Patrick Stewart in 1981, Jeremy Irons in 1986, John Nettles in 1992, Antony Sher in 1999, Anton Lesser in 2006 and Greg Hicks in 2009
In a nutshell the plot is jealous King Leontes falsely accuses his wife Hermione of infidelity with his best friend and she dies. Leontes exiles his newborn daughter Perdita, who is raised by shepherds for 16 years and falls in love with the son of Leontes’ friend.
Tickets for the streamed production on https://www. ticketsource.co.uk/shakefestival-winters site.