The Winter's Tale - Wanamaker/Globe

Saw the Wednesday matinee, and I agree with your assessment that the pieces didn't really fit together. I absolutely loved the central Globe comedy section, and agree that it wasn't at all a fit with the cold stylised murderous drama that played out in the Wanamaker.

Some spoilers follow. . .

I disagree with your view that they got the theatres the wrong way round though. Even at 13 degrees Centigrade, and even with an audience only filling the expensive seats (first come first served lol), the Globe is a much freer, more democratic, more humorous space than the cramped hoity toity Wanamaker, with its poisonously bad views for the impecunious and general aura of shush.

The opening act in the Wanamaker was downright bizarre, and clearly intended to be. Compared to, say, the last West End version of this, where Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench were firing off massive emotions at each other, this is a cold cold fish, with Sergio Vares's Leontes a kind of vacant sociopathic incel, stonily staring down his wife through spectacles, as she pinches Polixenes's cheeks and he rudely rubs her belly in return. The vibe is that we the audience are watching the scene through this cold impotent maniac's eyes and just waiting for him to turn inevitably murderous. It's stylised (Leontes chases his guests round the table, repeatedly taking their chairs, but remaining expressionless), a mixture of fascinating and flat out boring.

Once the show moves to the Globe, however, you'd swear Dominic Dromgoole was back in charge, and the whole company were ready to dance again. The vibe turns from frozen expressionism to standup silliness, and for me, by far, the comedy MVP was Ed Gaughan's Autolycus, who whipped the audience through a fourth wall breaking panto song reminiscent of Norman Wisdom, complete with lyric cards, and absolutely revelled in taking the Shepherds for mugs. It helps that Samuel Creasey, the obvious hire if you want James Corden on a budget, is so good at playing the gormless high-pitched fool to Gaughan's jaunty conman. Colm Gormley is also very funny as the Shepherd Pere, and Gormley and Creasey are a wonderful father-son double-act of dumbness.

The whole of Act 2 is revels, with wall to wall comedy and dance, and sometimes the dancers even wear animal masks to confirm that the revels have well and truly started.

I felt traumatised at having to return to the Wanamaker for the third act, having so much enjoyed the second. Mercifully, it's short, and it tries to merge the two dissonant styles of the first and second acts, but it's a bit of a mishmash as a consequence.

It seems to me that the brilliant idea of using both spaces probably came first, and the art followed the form, with creatives asking themselves what the spaces' voices would be like, and then crafting their take on that. Therefore, it is not really the Winter's Tale speaking to us at all, but the Wanamaker and Globe themselves, and it confirms for me, I much prefer the Globe's voice lol.

3 Stars from me for an awesomely entertaining central hour!

Shame that it didn't entirely work, because it sounds like such a good idea. Makes me wonder if a promenade production using the two theatres, plus public spaces would ever work there.

I suppose the cold-blooded portrayal of Leontes made me expect something like I've seen in Measure for Measure, where there's an acknowledgement that the Duke wanting to marry Isabella is quite creepy to a modern audience. But instead we got a fairly traditional family reunion. 

foxa I think it worked well enough to be worth trying again. I'm sure there are other plays it would work with.