The Winter’s Tale – Royal Shakespeare Company
Yes yes yes yes yes yes! This is the type of production that makes you doubt the play has ever been better performed in the 400 years since it was written. A text often relegated to reluctant decennial repetition by repertory Shakespeare theatres, this “problem play”—only partially redeemed and abashedly esteemed for its “strong female characters”—is here staged so boldly that it not only asks but demands audiences to answer: what actually is so problematic about female strength? Why are men made so uncomfortable by powerful women? And what on earth are women supposed to do with that dangerous discomfort?
Directed by Yaël Farber and dripping with the seductive intrepidity that coats her directorial tongue, this production is unmissable and unmistakable. It is contemporary not in the sen...