When I was asked if I wanted to go watch Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale a couple of months ago, I said yes, only because Ethan Hawke was in it. Shakespeare? My only knowledge of his work was studying Merchant of Venice in school, even then I’ve forgotton what the play was about. But Ethan, oh Ethan, how he thrilled me in Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Gattaca, Waking Life, Dead Poets Society, Reality Bites,… To see him acting in the flesh last night was unforgettable. You know when an actor is good when he manages to suck you into a story that at first seemed like 17th century gibberish.
Truth be told, I was lost for the first half hour or so in the play, still trying to understand the Shakespearean way of speech. Literature was my least favourite subject in school. I, along with a handful of us that watched the play together yesterday, had even thought that Polixenes (Josh Hamilton) was Ethan. Why, he appeared in the first scene, had pretty much the same frame and face and hair and was a main character at least before the break. But Ethan only appeared after the break as Autolycus, a rogue who plays the guitar and picks pockets. That’s when I really got suck into the play. Perhaps it was because only when he appeared did music and song really kick off in the play, and that always helps the audience relate better. Whatever the case, for the rest of the play, he became Autolycus and not Ethan to me. I guess that’s the mark of a great actor, when they don’t let themselves get typecast into a certain role. The suave Ethan of Gattaca and the romantic Ethan of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset was forgotten just for last night.
So, what was The Winter’s Tale about? I didn’t research into the plot before last night’s performance, but from what I viewed it is this: The King of Sicilia gets jealous about his Queen’s relations with the King of Bohemia and starts creating and believing the wrong ideas about the relationship between the two. So he sends his pregnant Queen to jail, and after she gives birth to a girl, the King of Sicilia wants the baby killed. After some persuasion from his men, he lets the baby go, but the girl is sent so far away and ends up being brought up by shepherds. Meanwhile, as the girl is sent away, the King of Sicilia’s first child, a son, dies, which sends the Queen into her own death (it seems, but she ressurected in the end, I don’t know how). Some fifteen years later, it turns out the King of Bohemia’s son has courted and plans on marrying the King of Sicilia’s long lost girl. Somehow they all end up in Sicilia with everyone, including the King of Sicilia, realising it is the long lost princess. And so, the story ends with the Queen coming alive and everyone reunited and happy… I think.
Don’t take my word for it. Go see it for yourselves. It’s on from now till March 31 at the Esplanade.