Performance Review: The Winter's Tale by Erica Whyman

Abstract

tion, Godwin presents a series of brief snippets of images that precede the prologue to deliver a Hollywood trailer-like condensation of the play’s most significant events and symbols: the first meeting of Romeo and Juliet; the balcony scene; the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt; the lovers’ consummation; the vial of poison; the catafalque. In doing so, he delivers two important messages to his audience. Firstly, he acknowledges the play’s iconography and playfully alludes to the viewer’s presumed foreknowledge of Shakespeare’s familiar narrative. Secondly, and most significantly, by pairing the image of a socially distanced group of actors with dream-like portraits of bodies and touch, the production is rooted in the context within which it was performed where a physical connection is yearned for but denied. The production serves therefore to emphasise why Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s tale of forbidden love and enforced separation, is such an apt play for a society in lockdown.