PERICLES

REVIEW BY CELIA IPIOTIS

REVIEW BY Celia Ipiotis

Fiasco Theater has a knack for making Shakespeare accessible and satisfying without diminishing any of the Bard’s eloquence. In a popular run at the Classic Stage Company, Fiasco Theater jumps into Shakespeare’s Pericles–considered one of his messier plays.A band of a half dozen itinerant actors flip togas on and off, keep time on beat boxes and sing and dance throughout the shaggy drama. 

The hero, Pericles (played with more and less success by Paco Tolson, Tatiana Wechsler, Noah Brody and Devin E. Haqq) steps into a little doo doo when he deconstructs the riddle in a bid to woo a neighboring kings’ daughter. He unwittingly discovers the riddle points a finger at the father molesting his daughter. Yes, Shakespeare spoke about incest, but then the Ancient Greeks poked around those dark corners a few thousand years earlier.

Forced to hide, Pericles sails from one adventure to another, saving a starving country with his grain, then capsizing in a storm only to be saved by a campy group of fisherman. This comically ragtag group rescues his armor and points him towards the next day’s tournament where the winner enjoy’s the king’s beautiful daughter’s hand in marriage.  Naturally, our guy Pericles wins, but the never-ending odyssey continues to unwind.

One tragedy after another befalls Pericles. Believing he lost his wife  during the birth of their daughter, Pericles places his daughter, Marina with King Cleon who plots her death. Yes, the grown-up Marina (a delightful Emily Young) escapes and becomes a highly cultured prostitute that shames men into not bedding her. Pericles finds his daughter, learns his wife was revived and all is right in the world.

Notably, all these transkingdom escapades evolve out of white sheets, wooden beat boxes, and a wood coffin that can be converted into thrones, ships, beds and village benches. Tuneful songs by director Ben Steifeld capture the emotions and fantastical events described by an ingenious company that romps around the circular stage surrounded on three sides by a devoted audience.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis