E-mail to a friend Find tickets
In this epic fairytale, partly authored by Shakespeare, the wave-tossed wanderer Pericles voyages around Asia Minor, beset by shipwrecks and unhappy landings until finally reunited with his long-lost wife and daughter.
Not entirely trusting the play, Kathryn Hunter turns her modern dress production into an overlong, circus-like entertainment, compered by Patrice Naiambana’s Gower as a wisecracking ringmaster, plus a troupe of high-flying aerialists who do dangerous things on ropes.
Meanwhile her regular collaborator Marcello Magni, as resident clown, takes on a dozen or more roles, running rings around everyone else on stage and seen at his best as Simonides in a dazzling comic knockabout with his future son-in-law.
But the initial problem is a colourless portrayal of the young Pericles, culminating in a Pentapolis tournament when, trussed up like Tweedledum, Robert Lucskay sings a pathetic ballad to win the hand of Thaisa, while his rivals defy gravity with a distracting display of aerial gymnastics.
Luckily Corin Redgrave is on hand to take over the role of Pericles the Elder at the point when Shakespeare’s voice breaks in. And together with Laura Rees as his daughter Marina, he offers a beautifully touching recognition scene, while she also shines as the holy innocent in the Mytilene brothel, abused by Magni’s offensively lewd pander.
Other well focused roles include Jules Melvin as the bawdy Madame, Hilary Tones cleverly doubling as both a cruel, businesslike Dionyza in heels and the romantic Thaisa, and Jude Akuwudike first seen hip-swivelling as the incestuous Antiochus then Marina’s gentlemanly saviour.
E-mail to a friend Find tickets
Production information can change over the run of the show.
Content is copyright © 2010 The Stage Newspaper Limited unless otherwise stated.
All RSS feeds are published for personal, non-commercial use. (What’s RSS?)