THE WINTER’S TALE

PEOPLE’S LIGHT & THEATRE COMPANY, PENNSYLVANIA USA - 2013

DIRECTED BY GUY HOLLANDS

LIGHTING DESIGN BY LILY FOSSNER

★ FEATURED ON THE FRONT COVER AND LEAD ARTICLE OF 'AMERICAN THEATRE' MAGAZINE.

"Set and costume designer Philip Witcomb, a New York–based Brit whose career began in Scotland, put audiences on three sides of his rustic barnwood stage in People’s Light’s 340-seat flexible mainstage space, and costumed the cast in tattered Threepenny Opera–style circus garb with a steampunk edge. The result presented The Winter’s Tale as performed by a 19th-century traveling troupe, a “low-tech, outlier band” that celebrated the power of company. The large cast, including a dozen teens from the summer workshops and 14 adults, created an outdoor festival before and after the play, climaxing with the effigy burning of the Witch of Winter."

American Theatre Magazine

"A short pre-curtain show featuring the cast on an outdoor stage under tin can lamps and beside a warming fire, general admission tickets, and post-show pagan revelry, including a burning of the 'Witch of Winter' all add to a sense of togetherness."

"Philip Witcomb's sets and costumes evoke, simultaneously, a traveling carnival and Victorian junk shop."

"Old-timey circus banners flank parts of the newly-built thrust stage, while over the proscenium hangs a bough laden with taxidermied trophies, antlers and seasonal greenery."

"In the first act, Leontes' castle is constructed of haphazardly nailed two-by-fours, and characters wear the kind of musty men's fur coats and women's mutton-chop sleeves that would suit one of Edward Gorey's decrepit mansions. Hollands may have imported a bit of the vibe from his home base (Glasgow's Citizens Theatre) said to be haunted by a ghost that looks significantly like the later incarnation of wronged Hermione, and leans toward a mystical reading of the play's later events."

"Phenomenal style."

The Philadelphia Inquirer

"The opening night of 'The Winter's Tale' at Peoples Light & Theatre Company offered sad tales, ribald songs and dances, swirling snow showers, homemade tin lanterns, flaming braziers, a man in a bear suit dispensing hugs and other delightful departures from traditional staging that will surely cause jealousy among theater companies faced with trying to get paying customers into seats during the snow and Super Bowl season."

"Director Guy Hollands of Glasgow's Citizens Theatre, brings a familiarity with community theatre and offers something completely different, a Saturnalian solstice festival that uses traditional music-hall, vaudeville and burlesque to tell the disjointed story of a king wrecking his reign with jealousy and suspicion."

"Philip Witcomb, another visiting Citizens Theatre stalwart, has created a towering set that evokes British music-halls and pantomime productions, then adds a traditional thrust stage (open to the audience on three sides) that necessitated a reconstruction of the main stag "Any production so favored by the gods of weather and circumstance that it can create its own rich post-holiday revel, can make us believe a shipwreck could occur on the "shore" of a land-locked Bohemia or that a statue of a long-dead queen could come to life, can surely bring some much-needed warmth to our own contemporary winter of discontent."

Daily Local News

"For the People's Light and Theater Company, The Winter's Tale does not begin onstage but literally in winter. Outside, half an hour before the show starts, the audience is encouraged to mingle underneath strings of lanterns, sipping at hot cider and warming themselves at giant wood-fire stoves, as the company juggles, sings, and dances - and, on this occasion at least, snow enthusiastically falls from the heavens. The ambitious production consists not only of the play, but of an entire festival, incorporating Shakespeare's words into a pageant celebrating the turn of the seasons and the promised arrival of spring from the depths of winter."

"It's an elaborate yet intriguing conceit: a flyer elaborates the company's role as a wandering troupe of performers dedicated to strengthening the bonds of community through the arts and in the spirit of ancient pagan festivals. Director Guy Hollands takes his inspiration from the Dance of the Satyrs at the sheep-shearing festival in Act IV, a sequence that is frequently cut from productions. His research into the subject led him to a wealth of information about folk traditions and rituals, and the decision to incorporate the play itself into a seasonal ceremony. (In what is either a brilliant marketing decision or an extremely happy coincidence, they even manage to open on Groundhog's Day, Pennsylvania's very own heralding of spring.) Hollands presents an almost seamless transition between new and old material: the revelry outside concludes with the presentation of an effigy of the Winter Witch, who is carried inside by a procession chanting "Burn the witch!" and stored underneath the stage, after which the ensemble performs another song before segueing into the beginning of the play."

"Outside the main entrance, surrounded by the stoves and underneath the lanterns, is a weathered wooden structure acting as a stage for the entertainers, laid out like the grounds at a small country fair. Costume/Set Designer Philip Witcomb continues this association inside with a thrust stage constructed of the same gray wood, lined with battered red and white bunting and old-timey gazebo lights. Modern technology is disguised, as the speakers have been replaced by phonograph horns and the stage lights given retro limelight covers. Flanking the stage are two giant posters in the style of old woodcuts: on the left, a skeleton cavorts in a bleak landscape under In Mortem Brumalis, and on the right, a maiden is surrounded by greenery underneath Die Natalis Aestas; roughly, "In the death of winter to the birthday of summer". Just in case the theme of the festival isn't yet clear, the set dressing features a literal progression of the seasons: Sicilia, soon-to-be site of brutality and cold-heartedness, is decked out like a winter hunting lodge with antlers, animal skulls, and an enormous bear's head and holly wreath; Bohemia, source of renewal and rebirth, changes out those fixtures for stuffed lambs and garlands of flowers.

Witcomb's costume design parallels these motifs - a band of players celebrating the seasons and their transformative power - almost exactly: at the pre-show festivities, some of the actors have donned their characters' costumes, but others are dressed specifically for that event, with many of the dancers donning jackets made of fluttering red and white ribbons. The troupe's baseline seems to be a slightly twisted circus aesthetic, featuring a lot of black and white stripes, tattoo sleeves, and Victorian silhouettes, but paired with wild teased hair and stylized face paint, including some designs clearly inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead festival. In the play itself, wintery Sicilia requires the addition of heavy coats and furs; in springtime Bohemia, meanwhile, the dress is in fact more bohemian, with skirts and trousers rolled up and topped with a variety of outlandish accessories, including more flowers and animal masks for the sheep-shearing festival."

"The production ends with the company retrieving the Winter Witch from beneath the stage and processing off to burn it in a (symbolic) bonfire. Sadly, despite the pageantry, performance, and imaginary immolation, the People's Light and Theater Company's production did not actually have the ability to summon spring: the snow kept on falling. Nevertheless, their exceptional interpretation of The Winter's Tale stands as a testament to the the creativity and passion that can liven even the dreariest winter months."

PlayShakespeare.com ★★★★★