Where the King Loses It (But Gets Some of It Back)

Shakespeare's Play a Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of my favorite Shakespeare plays, now. I knew nothing at all about this play until very recently, and am surprised to learn it's as popular as it is. Never was taught in any classes I took...

But it should be. It's more fun than most of his plays, and reasonably comprehensible without much assistance--more than many.

Somewhere between romance and myth, we a king who, like Othello, doesn't believe in his wife's faithfulness (though she is absolutely faithful), and everyone suffers, especially his wife and son, but much of the harm is undone by the end, including an Ovid-like metamorphosis that repairs the worst of it. (The son and everyone on the ship remain dead, unfortunately.) Some of it is like tragedy, and fairly realistic, but the statue of his wife returning to life is pure fantasy or myth, and that's cool. It would have been fun to see performed.

The common trope of this time (from Shakespeare to Austen and almost to our time) that a noble young man in love with a beautiful girl--peasant, servant, or, as in this case, a shepherdess--is absolutely NOT to think about marrying her; but if that girl turns out to be a lost princess (which, of course, she must be, or she wouldn't be beautiful, right?) then all is well. Marry away! Nobody is bothered by the fact that nothing actually changed about the girl--if she was worth marrying as a princess, she should have been worth marrying as a shepherdess, because she was the same either way. But I can't change the minds of people long dead.

Anyway, I like a happy ending, and this one will do. If we had seen a bit more of Perdita being amazing and sweet in the middle, someone worth infuriating a king for, in act III or act IV, I would have liked it a bit better. She doesn't get enough time on stage to suit me. Still, 4 stars for the first couple acts and the last one. Good fun.

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