Pericles — a tasteful take on Shakespeare’s flimsy romance

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If you were looking for evidence that not everything that comes from Shakespeare’s pen is a work of genius, this fanciful romance would be a good place to start. True, many scholars now attribute the first two acts, padded out with workaday verse, to a collaborator, George Wilkins, but even the latter sections devoted to the wanderings of the eponymous Prince of Tyre have their longueurs.
The RSC’s new co-artistic director Tamara Harvey oversees an utterly tasteful, masque-like production where you can admire individual elements without being convinced that they add up to a truly satisfying whole. There’s certainly lots of visual charm. Jonathan Fensom’s ascetic set design is draped with ropes that provide the outline of domestic interiors and, elsewhere, are used to evoke waves raging during a tempest. Ryan Day’s sumptuous lighting casts a Levantine glow over proceedings. As our careworn hero wanders from city to city, the composer Claire van Kampen provides a subtle backdrop, gentle percussion, modal textures and sinuous reeds luring our imaginations eastwards.
Still, it’s not quite enough to distract attention from the flimsiness of the story itself. Alfred Enoch, one of several actors making their RSC debut, is a likeably boyish presence in the early scenes, although it’s the more seasoned members of the cast who make the strongest impression. Christian Patterson gets many a laugh as the roguish Simonides, ruler of Pentapolis, casting fruity, vaudevillean glances at the audience. Felix Hayes gives us a suavely villainous Antiochus, the monarch whose incestuous passion for his daughter sets the whole yarn in motion. Hayes also doubles as the lubricious Pander, as well as one of the fishermen who supply roguish patter when a shipwrecked Pericles recovers a suit of armour conveniently yielded up from the ocean (it’s that kind of tale, you see).
Rachelle Diedericks floats through it all as Pericles’ innocent, long-lost daughter Marina. But was I touched by their reunion at the close? Not really. Whenever the narrative flags, nevertheless, you can always admire the handsome costumes designed by Kinnetia Isidore: royalty and commoners alike look splendid. This version of the play cuts much of the ponderous commentary normally delivered by the poet Gower. Harvey casts the story in a ritualistic light, combining declamatory voices with the frieze-like interweaving of courtiers and humble citizens overseen by the movement director Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster. The technique is imposing in small doses, but in an overlong evening it’s a little like being subjected to a two-and-a-half-hour version of the play within a play in Hamlet.★★★☆☆160minTo September 21, rsc.org.uk
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