You may never have heard of Shakespeare’s seldom produced play Pericles. But Boston Court wants to correct that with an adventurous version that takes Shakespeare’s plot and superimposes our recent fires and subsequent displacements to add another layer to the already well-worked play. I’ll explain.
This Pericles is part of a project entitled “Play On Shakespeare” dedicated to bringing more clarity to the Bard’s middle English text. Play On commissions poets and playwrights to render his traditional Iambic Pentameter into a more, let’s say, 21st Century version. In this case, Playwright Ellen McLaughlin has given us fresh verse for the tale of love, loss, and reunion that makes Shakespeare’s rendition so rewarding.
I could wax lyrical about Shakespeare and how he interwove traditional Greek sources with a contemporary production of his time to conjure this play in the first place. But it is enough to say he was entering a new phase in his own career and needed to keep his audiences entertained. In merrie olde England, there was much more interest in facing disasters like ocean storms than moral dilemmas such as Hamlet faced. That makes it all the more fun to see what Boston Court’s director, Margaret Shigeko Starbuck, has wrought, than to see a traditional version of the play.
The theme of storming is vividly brought home in the opening scenes: we see a shelter complete with collapsible cots for the displaced people who enter. At the beginning they are strangers, but when the lights go out, (Inevitable, right?), one enterprising citizen (Joel Swetlow as Gower, the narrator) begins to entice them into participating in acting out a play which turns out to be Pericles.
From a rather murky beginning, using flashlights in the dark, the play begins to unfold. Randolph Thompson is chosen as Pericles, while Desiree Mee Jung and Adam Smith portray the rulers of a distant land in which he finds himself. As the characters becomes more comfortable in their roles, we find ourselves more engrossed in the story, while the vestiges of the shelter fade away.
It’s interesting to watch the young, virile Pericles wooing first one woman, and then another, depending on what shore he finds himself on. We are treated to his wedding with Thaisa (Nicole Javier), only to lose her in childbirth, when she leaves behind a daughter, that Pericles names Marina (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson. And, of course, therein lies the tale!
Along the way, we are treated to Boston Court’s superb designers, from the innovative sometimes-bare stage designed by Michelle Joo with the help of Lighting Designer, Pablo Santiago, to the music composed and arranged by John Ballenger; costuming by Nala Zinngrabe and so many more.
In totality, they provide, not so much a play, as an experience, and you will leave the theatre having absorbed wind, rain, storms as well as love, loss, and reunion, in which all live happily ever after. And isn’t that what entertainment is all about?
Pericles runs through Sept. 27th, playing Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 pm; and Sundays, at 2 pm at Boston Court Theatre, 70 N, Mentor Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106. (There is free parking is available directly behind the building) For reservations, phone: (626) 683-6801. Or, for online ticketing, go to: https://bostoncourtpasadena.org.
