Missy - The Winters Tale ⭐️⭐️⭐️.25

This is my first real exposure to The Winters Tale. I hadn’t read it or seen it preformed before and was casually avoiding it. 

I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would and I’m glad to have seen it.

We had a rough time finding an appealing production, and had our hearts set on the Branagh, because Branagh.

It was almost impossible to find and we’d nearly given up when Kelsey found us a source. Thank you Kelsey!!!

This play is a late period (1611) Shakespearean work and has a strong depressing first half, and a relatively weak and predictable back half.

If it weren’t for Branagh and Dench (and a startling return-to-form scene at the end) it probably would have gotten 2 stars from me.





The language was a joy to sit and wallow in and the story was appropriate to the ancient Greco Roman types.

The problem here is that Shakespeare and I have fairly different ideals when it comes to Greco Roman types.

Here’s how it goes: A king goes mad and calamity ensues, innocents die, long persevering servants triumph with moral clarity.

Things I liked about this play: the production especially the dancing and the heavier psychological elements and of course Branagh and Dench were all great. 

Dench has the role of stiff backed Jiminy Cricket. She is holding unwaveringly, to truth and justice throughout. She inhabits this inflexible uprightness perfectly.

Branagh is the passionate, paranoid and impulsive king and he swings majestically (bipolar like) between rapture and explosive rage in true heroic fashion. His delivery gets special mention here, so smooth and so natural, it makes even this jackknife/random behavior feel possible if not likely.





I liked the home movie setting of the kings friendship in the beginning, very much. It’s a short establishing exposition but I bought it completely and felt seated into the reality of the relationships effortlessly.




I was delighted by the surprise of the Bavarians and shepherds all being good dancers, also I was surprised by the sexiness of the pastoral dance parts, a little ballet and mostly modern.

Things that missed for me: it was dark and I don’t think that was the video so much as the stage design. I spent an uncomfortable amount of time squinting at my screen. 

My primary complaint, and this is a failing of the play and not the production, the pacing was off and the happy ending felt like an afterthought. What can you do? I’m not the first to have this problem with this play.





I doubt I’ll watch it again and I doubt I’ll look for another version but I’m glad I’ve seen it.

I usually read a bit about these plays when we watch them and found in Wikipedia this compelling argument for analysis .

Eric Ives, the biographer of Anne Boleyn(1986),[4] believes that the play is meant to parallel the fall of that queen, who was beheaded on false charges of adultery on the orders of her husband Henry VIII in 1536. There are numerous parallels between the two stories – including the fact that one of Henry's closest friends, Sir Henry Norreys, was beheaded as one of Anne's supposed lovers and refused to confess in order to save his life, claiming that everyone knew the Queen was innocent. If this theory is followed, then Perdita becomes a dramatic representation of Anne's only daughter, Queen Elizabeth I.

I think it’s has something of Tolkien’s Applicability vs Allegory flavor though.

If I hadn’t been indoctrinated by Will in the World into thinking of Shakespeare as almost neurotically apolitical I would love this theory.

The Winters Tale - 3.25 stars for cast and fine touches

Mom Score - I’ll give it a 3 because when there were moms they were good. 

You will not be surprised to discover that this is a father daughter play will you?

Mariam - The Winter's Tale ⭐⭐⭐.5

As a play, this was not a very good play. It's weird because this was a late play of his but it felt like he was just learning how to write some of his tropes. This was again, the man who falsely accuses his pure wife of cheating on him on the flimsiest of excuses. À la Much Ado About Nothing and Othello. Sorry, I don't even have Muslim outrage anymore. It ran out with Othello.  

The story roughly goes that king and queen invite their childhood friend, other king over for a visit. 

He is leaving and king says to other king please stay. Other king declines. King asks queen to press other king. Other king gives in and stays. King decides this means they've been cuckolding him. He throws out queen and their newborn daughter. Their son, a child, dies of heartbreak. 

Queen dies. Newborn child is left to die of exposure but is saved by someone passing by.

 Other king escapes with barely his life. 

Time jump. Princess is growing up as a peasant but has caught other king's son's eye to other king's great offense. The two run away to the next kingdom which unbeknownst to them is actually her father's kingdom. 

Due to a series of events (which involve a seer to divine she's the princess), she is restored to her family and turns out queen didn't even die, she was pretending to be dead. Everyone is reunited except the dead prince who is really dead. 

This dry narration isn't me making a joke haha. It's actually what happened.

I lied, I was a little outraged about the accusation of adultery based off of the woman doing what the man asked her to do??? I went through some rumination on this. He used this plot point of false accusation so frequently that I wondered if Shakespeare was trying to point out that it's CRAZY to accuse a woman like this? But then this was supposed to be a tragicomedy, starting dark and ending well. Then I wondered if he'd falsely accused his wife of adultery or wondered if she did cheat on him while he left her in the countryside. Then I wondered if actually she did cheat on him. Then, I thought, well who knows. 

A typical Shakespeare rumination. 

I think the play itself was boring which surprised me because at this point Shakespeare is wealthy. If he doesn't have a good idea, he doesn't really have to write, does he?

But Kenneth Branagh did a fantastic job just adding atmosphere to it. It starts with a cozy Christmas family scene.

 He manages to get Judi Dench who has great delivery. That voice of hers is very moving. 

The fun musical scenes were actually good entertainment although I didn't understand the song at all. The singing was quite good. 

The queen did a great job of pretending to be a statue at the end and she was quite beautiful. Most of the stars are to the actors and producers. 

We have Kenneth Branagh's Love Labour Lost next. We are quite lucky to be in his time of Shakespeare productions, so I'm looking forward to it.