Shakespeare's Pericles
is a heartwarming story of a healed relationship between a father and his
family that seems to parallel the author's own angst over his strained
relationship with his family.
Written by Shakespeare while living and working in London, while his daughters lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, Pericles is the story of a father
separated from his family by the pressures of his job as king of Tyre and the unfeeling
tides of the universe. Pericles is written as an empathetic character, and the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival's current production taps into that core quality of
the script.
Pericles (Wayne T. Carr) meets his wife, Thaisa (Brooke
Parks), while on the run from the villainous Antiochus (Scott Ripley). The pair
have a daughter, Marina (Jennie Greenberry), while at sea, only to be separated
by shipwreck. The three end up in different cities, but the story follows Marina and her salvation
of Mytilene from the vice of lust through her unprecedented chastity. The play
ends with the family's reunion at the hands of the goddess Diana (Emily
Serdahl).
OSF's Pericles is
a compelling piece because director Joseph Haj embraces the fairy tale
qualities of the script, allowing Shakespeare's fantasy of a happy reunion with
his family to play as such. It allows us to believe the happy end the way we
might believe the happy end in any fairy tale: we don't necessarily believe the
events of the, but we believe its sentiment. We believe that the Big Bad Wolf gets
his just desserts and celebrate Little Red Riding Hood's victory. We are
disappointed in the princess's mistreatment of the frog, and celebrate her
reward upon behaving correctly. We hope that Pericles, Thaisa and Marina will
be all right in the end, and cry just a little bit when they are. Pericles is a fairy tale, and
Shakespeare's telling is the most famous one for us in our time, just like the
Grimm brother's "Little Red Riding Hood" is the most famous telling
of that tale. Shakespeare's Pericles
is not an anonymous telling, however, who's author is shrouded behind the
curtains of tradition and intermediary anthropologists. Shakespeare is very
present in his Pericles, with
Pericles' separation from his wife and daughter paralleling Shakespeare's own
alienation from his family. That Pericles
is most engaging once that central problem begins in the third act speaks to
Shakespeare's Pericles' strength
lying in the protagonist's role as an authorial proxy: since Shakespeare seems
to have identified with Pericles in his struggle for reunion with his family,
it's easiest for the audience to identify with Pericles there, too.
The lesson here is for playwrights to write not just what
they know, but what they've experienced. The first two acts of Pericles are compelling only by OSF's
stagecraft: the play speaks for itself when the protagonist's struggle
parallels the author's own experience.