THEATER

Theater for a New Audience
Pericles - William Shakespeare

“Trevor Nunn works closely and collaboratively with his actors, but his first duty is always to the story.”

– Alexis Soloski, The New York Times
– Adam Feldman, Time Out New York, Critics’ Pick
His fluid, natural handling of the language establishes an instant intimacy with the audience.
To perform this bounteous, demanding role – a career landmark for all actors –
with such intelligence, sensitivity, and truth is a major accomplishment.” – Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

“Vividly staged by Trevor Nunn. Rich…Fantastical…Sleek.  The splendid music by Shaun Davey is played by PigPen Theatre Co.  Christian Camargo speaks the verse with marvelous clarity and invests it with the heat of real feeling.”

“★★★★ Ravishing…directorial mastery…an impressively noble Christian Camargo…the play is finally quite moving.”

“Looks and sounds great…. Nunn has cast actors who serve the verse so that the beauty pops as much as the humor. Christian Camargo speaks beautifully… with affecting dignity.” –Jesse Green, New York Magazine

“★★★★…A fabulous fairytale…Sumptuous and spectacular.” – Alexis Soloski, The Guardian

Sweeping, majestic…magical, theatrical…with music, dance, and pageantry all contributing to the glow. – The New Yorker 

Pericles tells a surging adventure story—a hero wanders Odysseus-like through the world of the Mediterranean—and climaxes with events that are seemingly miraculous.

An original score composed by Tony-nominated Shaun Davey helps convey the mystery and magic of this tale of redemption, reconciliation, and forgiveness. The acclaimed story-teller musicians of PigPen Theatre Co. lend their voices and instrumentation to the production, playing Mr. Davey’s score and performing various roles throughout.

Christian Camargo returns to TFANA, following his performances in Coriolanus and Hamlet, to play the title role. Trevor Nunn, former Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre, stages Pericles, one of Shakespeare’s late plays, for the first time in his career.

“The mighty role of Hamlet sits with remarkable ease on Christian Camargo, the tremendously gifted actor.

Review: In ‘Pericles,’ Much Ado About a Lot of Things

 “What shall be next,” says Gower, the sorely taxed narrator of Shakespeare’s complicated romance “Pericles,” preparing to introduce the next knot in the yarn. Well, you might reasonably think, what shall not be next?

Even by the standards of the late romances, rich in strange reversals and fantastical happenings, “Pericles” stands out for its tumultuous story line. Here we have not one but two shipwrecks, along with enough successful sea journeys for its hero to rack up major frequent-sailor miles. (Do you get double miles for shipwrecks?) Also: incest, a band of pirates and an innocent maid forced into a brothel, to mention just a few of the woollier elements in this rarely produced play.

Just how exotic it is might be measured by the fact that Trevor Nunn, who ran both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theater in England — both ample producers of Shakespeare, I need hardly say — has never before directed the play. (By his count, there are only two others he has not directed — yet.) The Theater for a New Audience production of “Pericles,” which opened on Thursday at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, also marks Mr. Nunn’s first American staging of a Shakespeare play.

The production, largely well acted and vividly staged, opens with a thunderclap, an apt harbinger of the stormy tale to unfold. Mr. Nunn has played fast and loose with the text (and included language from George Wilkins’s roughly contemporary prose version of the story). Even the opening speech from Gower, played with ringing authority by Raphael Nash Thompson, has been sliced and diced, although its essentials are intact.

Throughout, Mr. Nunn has resorted to similar tactics, breaking up long speeches to create more brisk exchanges between characters, reordering and eliminating scenes, turning speeches into songs. (The splendid music, by Shaun Davey, is performed by members of the PigPen Theater Co., who also play small roles.)

Purists may blanch, but the language in “Pericles” has always been a matter of debate, with many experts believing Shakespeare did not write the early acts. In any case, the verse, and the rich psychology that marks Shakespeare’s greatest works, have never been the attraction of this wonder-packed tragicomedy. It is the turbulent depiction of Pericles’ long, arduous battle with ill fortune, and the miraculous turns that restore his family to him, that give the play its appeal. This is an action-driven yarn — the equivalent in the Shakespeare canon of a popcorn picture — and Mr. Nunn’s careful editing improves the tale’s sometimes haphazard momentum.

And in Christian Camargo, who plays the title role, Mr. Nunn has an actor who grounds the play in solid if somber emotion. An experienced Shakespearean — his Hamlet for the same company ranks among the finest I’ve seen — Mr. Camargo speaks the verse with marvelous clarity, and invests it with the heat of real feeling, as Pericles meets misfortune with fortitude until, eventually, his weather-beaten spirit sags and he falls into a dank depression.

The sleek-looking production unfolds on a mostly bare stage. The set design, by Robert Jones, is dominated by a huge circular sculpture that looms at the back. Resembling at some points a crater, a moon or a giant porthole, it also could be seen as a giant, godlike eye watching over the proceedings with chilly indifference. (“O you gods!” Pericles cries at one dire point. “Why do you make us love your worldly gifts, and then snatch those gifts away?”) Worn metal panels open and close over it throughout, like the slow blinking of that eye, as the action moves among several Mediterranean locations.

The parade of extravagant costumes, by Constance Hoffman, brings a colorful injection of visual drama to the proceedings, too. As the play begins, Pericles, in search of a wife, calls upon Antiochus (Earl Baker Jr.) and his daughter (Sam Morales), who are both clad in richly colored, pleated robes that recall the signature style of the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake.

Here Pericles, himself attired in a fetching sheath of mottled lavender (whatever happened to Mary McFadden, anyway?), must win his bride by solving a dark riddle that reveals the truth: Antiochus and his daughter have been rather more intimate than is seemly.

Fleeing Antiochus’ designs upon his life, Pericles eventually goes on a voyage of mercy to Tarsus, where the governor, Cleon (a dignified Will Swenson), and his wife, Dionyza (Nina Hellman, doing a fine junior-league Lady Macbeth), are grateful for the food his ships bring to their starving populace. But their gothic attire (my companion clocked it as Jean-Paul Gaultier-inspired) hints at the nefarious role they will play when fortune toys with Pericles again.

After being shipwrecked on the shores of Pentapolis, Pericles at last finds a suitable bride in Thaisa (Gia Crovatin), the daughter of the king, Simonides (John Rothman). Ms. Crovatin, lovely-looking though she is, unfortunately fails to bring much bloom or pathos to her role; and pathos is definitely a requirement, given that she is soon to die (apparently) during the next shipwreck, just after having given birth to a daughter.

Are you keeping up? Let’s take up the tale 16 years later, as Pericles’ daughter, Marina (Lilly Englert), having been brought up by Cleon and Dionyza (long story), falls afoul of the queen, so far does she outshine Dionyza’s own daughter. Ms. Hellman comes into her own here, spitting enmity as she plots to have Marina killed. But lo! Before her evil designs can be fulfilled, Marina is kidnapped by pirates, and finds herself sold into prostitution. Stuff happens.

The comic scenes that follow are less funny than in some other versions I’ve seen, as the Bawd who runs the brothel, played with foot-stomping exasperation by Patrice Johnson Chevannes, becomes incensed that Marina’s luminous virtuousness turns customers away. Unfortunately Ms. Englert’s Marina seems more petulant and prissy than so radiantly pure of heart that her words could turn sinners instantly repentant.

Even with mildly disappointing performances in some key roles, I found myself, as always, entranced by the final scenes, when the aggrieved Pericles —having spent years in mourning for his wife and daughter —re-enters the story, his misery plainly etched on Mr. Camargo’s pale, darkly expressive face. The moments of recognition and reconciliation almost always bring me to the edge of tears, and did so once again here. After all that waterlogged woe, it’s hard not to feel wrung out with emotion when Pericles reaches safe harbor at last.