The Adventures of Pericles
The Adventures of Pericles
Translated by Ellen McLaughlin
Directed by Jim Helsinger
New Playfest 2015
Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Orlando FL</strong>
Reupholstering Shakespeare is an ancient tradition; there are two examples in this year’s Playfest. I don’t think a playwright exists who hasn’t taken a shot at the bard and this is one of the better cuts. The concept behind this work is the “translation” of all of Shakespeare’s works, each one by a different playwright. That means maintaining the poetry and sense of rhyme and rhyme but translating the words and sentence structure into modern English. The details of this act were discussed in the keynote speech by Ms. McLaughlin; it was an excellent introduction to the purpose and intention of the project. Having said that, the story still suffers from the issues inherited from the source material: it’s a long rambling story with numerous detours, hordes of passing characters, and long yet significant sea voyages. Ultimately, Pericles is more an absentee land lord; but he’s lucky to have honest and worthy supporters.
Narration by a long dead yet still popular poet Gower (Rick Stanley) frames the scenes as young and snotty Pericles (Sid Solomon) travels from Tyre to Antioch. Here he’s vying for the hand of Hesperides (Sarah Somervell), daughter to the incestuous king Antiochus (Mark Brotherton). It’s all a scam; Pericles just escapes alive with his life and Thaisa (Steven Lima) in hot pursuit. There are several assassins in this story; Pericles seems to attract them but none of them are very effective. With his self-illusion shattered he leaves his kingdom in the hands of Helicanus (David Lowe) and takes to the sea. Helicanus is amazingly meek as regent; he could have just taken over the place and he would have been more effective than the moody king in exile. But Pericles is having the bro time of his life: shipwrecks, jousts, births, people raised from the dead – it all begins to feel like Game of Thrones without the explicit sex. It’s also as long as a miniseries, and more than a few people bailed at intermission. There were times in the last act I was counting how many plot threads still needing resolution. Solomon is a good hipster king, and his cast does its best to keep the story moving, but ultimately this story starts out exciting but ends up a drive across Kansas.
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