The Winter's Tale
Archidamus, Antigonus and the Old Shepherd
PENNSYLVANIA SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
Directed by Patrick Mulcahy

The Winter's Tale was the most popular of Shakespeare's plays in the 19th Century, but is rarely produced these days. The plum character role was thought to be Autolycus, especially in the hands of such gifted comedians as William Evans Burton. I always thought it a confusing read with Byzantine intertwining plots and radical shifts in time and place. I had only seen one other production in the flesh--a production at Stratford in 1986, which I found visually quite interesting, but otherwise quite impenetrable. But I much prefer new challenges to safe revivals, so I thought this would be fascinating and fun. And it was.

This production was also my first opportunity to work directly with Patrick Mulcahy as director. It was clear from the start that Patrick had a very clear vision for the piece as a whole and had worked out very speicific moments, but that, as an actor himself, he was more than open to input from his actors.

Best from my point of view, having three character gave me an opportunity to create three rather distinct characters in a year when my energies were devoted almost exclusively to teaching. As I'd been largely in the classroom for the last couple of years, this was a welcome chance to get back in harness. The fellow below left was in only one scene, but it was crucial in that it opened the play. Archidamus' text suggests a somewhat officious (if not catty) courtier with a great deal more style than substance. Like most such hangers-on, he thought very highly of himself and his political skills, so I decided to make him a bit of a popinjay and a preener. Since I wanted to keep my beard and long hair for the Old Shepherd (above, right), I worked with PSF's wig and hair genius and came up with the rather satisfactory look seen on the left. It was achieved by pinning the bulk of my beard up under itself and carefully controlling the curly locks. Ad a heavy-lidded smirk, and an equally heavy dose of attitude and Archidamus came to life for me. And Patrick's staging of the first scene helped establish the style of the whole piece. Mike Walls and I were essentially supplying the exposition; a more naturalistic take on the staging would have had us trading sotto voce confidences and looking over our shoulders so we could be "overheard" by the audience. Instead, we were on opposite sides of the stage retailing the exposition which was displayed visually in the misty tableaux arranged about the arena.

All of \which proves (or al least demonstrates the old adage that there are no small parts...

The second character of the evening was Antigonus--a real plum and best known to Shakespeare scholars as the poor bloke whose exit is specified in one of the few stage directions attributable to Shakespeare himself: "Exit, pursued by a bear."Clearly this fellow needed a totally different look. Once again wig designer to the rescue: A dark wig, matching sideburns, a dark stripe down the middle of the pinned beard and the brooding fellow on the right was born.

Furthermore, Antigonus is a character of real complexity. I think his character approaches tragic dimensions. He stands up to his king but then submits to his orders; he must choose between compassion for an innocent baby and his duty and loyalty to his sovereign. He has quite a heated exchange with Leontes, and in our staging, was literally beaten down. But he's no mere toady. The strength of his opposition forces Leontes to the extremes which destroy so many. So I felt he deserved as "full" a sound and as rich as I possessed through most of it. I saw him as more of a self-made man than the more entitled Archidamus. This made him less graceful, less studied in his bearing and manner, less polished in matters of diction. I see a sort of kinship with other of Shakespeare's characters whom he kills off long before the end of the play: Polonius and Lear's Fool to name only two. While accidental, Antigonus' demise is thus somewhat more noble and important than it might at first seem. Structurally, it somehow deepens the nature of Paulina's widowhood and thus the senseless havoc wrought by Leontes' jealousy is broadened.

And Antigouns has a terrific (and technically quite challenging) speech when he's about to abandon the baby to the elements (talk about given circumstances!)

He leaves the baby and exits, pursued by that bear and is presumably eaten...

And then, the Old Shepherd comes on.

Immediately.

Which precipitated the most interesting fast change I've done in years. Going from the dark, brooding fellow on the left to the lighter old fellow below took a bit of doing. The costume change was the simple part: all that was required was that I underdress the Old Shepherd beneath Antigonus' enormous coat. As I tore out the main entrance of the arena screaming (as if pursued by the bear) and down the corridor that led to the backstage entrance, the coat and gloves came off to be retrieved by a costumer. The next few seconds were covered by sounds of the offstage bear attack while I attended to the rest of the look. Meanwhile, Patrick brought Autolycus on to do some conjuring over the baby and seem to draw someone to save her from the mist. Offstage, the wig and sideburns were coming off, pins flying while I attended to unpinning my voluminous beard; the hair was fluffed and... We needed a bit of time to cover all this activity, so Patrick suggested in rehearsal that I sing something to cover. I assured him I would find something. And couldn't. So I wrote something instead. The result was a rambling little ditty I call the Sheepcote Song. As it happened, we only needed the first verse and I started singing--or rather bellowing when the ASM on headset gave me a cue from whatever was happeneing onstage (I was always far too busy to find out) while my poor dresser competed with me to get all the bohby pins located and pulled. Another cue from the ASM and the Old Shepherd shuffled on in a rhyuthm totally at odds with the frenetic activity in which the actor was involved seconds before. I finished the song onstage as Autolycus helped me into my Shepherd's vest. The biggest issue for me at this point was breath control, having sprinted down a long corridor and done a fast change. As Allen Leatherman used to say, "I used it."

Once launched, the Old Shepherd proved to be another complex character. His scenes veered between broad farce in those with his son (Clown), to great tenderness in those with Perdita, and even a strong dose of pathos when it looked as though all was lost:

What an exit! But he comes back to lighten the mood in one more scene with his clownish son in very fancy clothes.

Through the good offices of our dialect coach Dudkley Knight, the characters in the Old Shepherd's domain all had a semblance of a Devon accent. This and a gravelly vocal texture separated this third character from the other two in the aural scheme of things. But how to create a single character with all those effects? Trust the Bard. Act on the line. And I did. And, of course, the Bard came through. As witness in a

Smattering of the Reviews:

Philadelphia Inquirer Sterling stagecraft in 'Winter's Tale' By Howard Shapiro
Shakespeare wrote The Winter's Tale as if it were two plays, grafted to one another in the last minutes, and that's just how Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival's classy production comes off, moving through its moods like a smooth ocean wave. ... The many fine actors include ...Wayne S. Turney as an old shepherd who makes a discovery that changes his life

The Morning Call Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival's 'Winter's Tale' has a spring in its step By Geoff Gehman
The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival version of ''The Winter's Tale'' begins with a cocky chap who points to his photo in a spectator's program to show that he is a handsome devil indeed. An invented character, he becomes a godly magician and the guardian angel of a rich production as confident as it is conscientious...Wayne S. Turney gives Antigonus and Old Shepherd, Perdita's adoptive father, a very engaging comic gravity.