Photo by Johan Persson
If you are unfamiliar with Shakespeare’s Pericles, that shouldn’t be surprising. A post in Reddit’s r/shakespeare (sourced to yougov.com) on the “relative popularity” of all of the Bard’s plays places it dead last, with only 1% of those surveyed being familiar with it at all (and this survey was in Britain!). It is very infrequently read, very infrequently performed, and very infrequently seen. So don’t berate your ignorance: you are clearly not alone.
I too have to acknowledge that this play has eluded me until now. (Maybe “eluded” is the wrong word: it’s not as if I were actively trying to familiarize myself with it all this time.) Now, however, in a traveling production from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Pericles has come to Chicago (more specifically, to the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre) in a typically stellar and entertaining production. No more excuses: get thee to Navy Pier for one of the few opportunities you may ever have to see this show. You won’t regret it.
Pericles has a very complicated plot—if I tried to summarize it here, this review would be way too long—but the RSC makes it easily accessible. It concerns the trials, travels and tribulations of King Pericles of Tyre, whose life would make a great soap opera: it’s rife with romance, jealousy, death, mystery, pirate attacks, kidnapping, misidentification, betrayal, and even an element of the supernatural as it wanders with its titular character from kingdom to kingdom to kingdom to make some sense of the many losses he has suffered, chief among which is the death of his wife Thaisa (Leah Haile) during childbirth.
It is so complex that, for one of the few times in his career, Shakespeare made significant use of what appears to be a dedicated narrator, played by Rachelle Diedericks. In most of his works, Shakespeare filters the narration through soliloquies by main characters. Not so here: Diedericks seems to know far more than any one character could know. (Late in the play her identity is revealed along with her connection to the events we’ve witnessed, and it all makes sense, but for most of the two and a half hour running time she is just an outsider who tells us the story, fills in the narrative gaps, and helps us to understand things.) Diedericks is extremely likable, and director Tamara Harvey assures that we never lose track of her by having lighting designer Ryan Day keep a soft highlight on her almost all of the time.
Pericles himself is played by Zach Wyatt with all of the complexity of a king whose personal losses have overtaken his political goals. It is clear that he is very depressed, but if he cannot put his pain behind him his country will suffer. Unlike him, though, we know that Thaisa is alive and living in the Temple of Diana in Ephesus, having been revived by Cerimon, a kind and learned physician, after the coffin in which she was buried at sea crashlands on the rocks near the temple. (I did mention that this is complicated, right?) Jacquline Boatswain plays Cerimon, a role that is traditionally male but seems better suited to a woman—given the proximity to the temple—as part healer, part cult leader, part Diana herself.
Other major characters include Helicanus (Philip Bird), an older lord who is left by Pericles to rule Tyre in his absence; Cleon and Dionyza (Chukwuma Omambala and Gabby Wong), rulers of Tarsus and friends to Pericles, with whom he leaves his infant daughter for her safety while he travels to come to grips with the loss of her mother; and Simonides, Thaisa’s father, played by Christian Patterson, who steals any scene he is part of.
This production also has a live five-piece orchestra, visible above the stage, playing original music by Claire Van Klampen under the direction of Elinor Peregrin. Van Klampen’s orchestrations help showcase the various moods throughout the play.
If you’ve never seen an RSC play, you owe it to yourself to check this one out. Not only that, but you’ll have bragging rights at parties for having seen this most obscure of the Bard’s plays. (OK, maybe I go to different parties than you, but you will have a fun time at the theatre.)
Tickets for Pericles are available from Chicago Shakespeare Theater. It is playing on Navy Pier through Dec 7. For more Chicago reviews or show information, see chicagoonstage.com or theatreinchicago.com.