A forgotten Shakespeare play and an unloved Stratford theatre find redemption

A revival of The Winter’s Tale helps transform Stratford’s once-avoided Tom Patterson Theatre into a must-visit

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It’s been a couple of years since I attended the Stratford Festival of Canada. I was determined to get there before summer’s end, and was able to briefly escape work on a beautiful day with perfect weather.

The performance I watched this year is one of William Shakespeare’s more humorous, entertaining and fantastical plays. It’s now widely regarded as part of the late romances, written near the end of the bard’s life. ‘Tis a winter fable fit for summer viewing.

As some of you may have now guessed, I went to see The Winter’s Tale on August 27. Although I never studied the play in school, I read it on my own some years ago. Stephen Orgel of the Folger Shakespeare Library described it as a “strangely discordant play” for modern audiences. He’s absolutely right.

It starts with a tale of two childhood friends: Leontes, King of Sicily, and Polixenes, the King of Bohemia. The latter has been enjoying his visit with the former, but he hasn’t been home in nine months and wants to return to Bohemia. Leontes was unable to convince Polixenes to stay longer, so he asked his pregnant wife, Hermione, to see if she could make any headway. She was able to convince Polixenes to stay longer with a few short speeches. Leontes was taken aback by her success and speculated that it could only have happened because she was having an affair with Polixenes.

This jealous rage sets off an astonishing series of events that tears apart Leontes’s life. He orders a Sicilian nobleman, Camillo, to poison Polixenes, but Camillo decides to warn Polixenes instead, and they both head off to Bohemia. Leontes arrests Hermione, and she gives birth to a girl in her prison cell. He refuses to accept the baby as his own flesh and blood and orders Lord Antigonus to take her and abandon her. The Oracle tells Leontes that Hermione and Polixenes are both innocent, but he won’t listen to reason. His son Mamillius gets sick and dies, which causes Hermione to collapse and, according to her friend Paulina, die of a broken heart. Leontes is crushed and vows to atone for his sins for the rest of his life.

But while the first half is “one of Shakespeare’s most brilliant and deeply felt studies of human psychology, uncompromising in its intensity and realism,” Orgel noted, the “tragic momentum of the first three acts” shifts gears and transforms into a world of “fantasy and magic.”

The Winter’s Tale becomes a comedy at the snap of the fingers. There’s plenty of clever banter between the pickpocket and peddler Autolycus with the Old Shepherd and Young Shepherd who rescued the young girl abandoned in Bohemia. The girl herself, Perdita, is a gregarious character who falls in love with Polixenes’s son, Florizel. There’s a happy ending for Leontes when he’s reunited with Perdita and a statue of Hermione unexpectedly comes to life. The one tragedy that doesn’t get resolved is Mamillius’s death, who opens and closes the play rolling a glimmering ball to his father.

It’s a magnificent performance of an unusual Shakespearean play. Many people likely haven’t seen it on stage, since the play goes through occasional waves of interest and disinterest among producers, actors and actresses. Then again, The Winter’s Tale “shows Shakespeare’s verbal powers at their greatest,” Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor wrote in William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, “and his theatrical mastery is apparent in, for example, Hermione’s trial … and the daring final scene in which time brings about its triumph.”

It’s fair to say that the venue was also a triumph. Most of the performances I’ve seen at Stratford have been at the Festival Theatre. It’s an intimate Greek-style amphitheatre in the heart of a small Ontario city, and well worth the price of admission. I’ve also seen one play at the Avon Theatre and, as of a couple of weeks ago, one at the Tom Patterson Theatre.

The latter theatre was often viewed as the weak sister of the three main playhouses. Originally a Kiwanis Community Centre that the Festival leased each season, it had a scenic view along the Avon River. Alas, the Tom Patterson was uncomfortable and a bit dismal and gloomy. Anyone I ever met who had watched a performance at that theatre always sighed and spoke with an air of regret. It seemed unworthy of being named after the Festival’s founder, all things considered.

Everything changed a few years ago. Stratford’s city council declared the land where the community centre resided as surplus in 2018. This enabled the Festival to initiate a major reconstruction project for the theatre. Although things got briefly delayed due to COVID-19, the renovated Tom Patterson finally opened in 2022.

The project cost $72 million, but it was well worth it. The new theatre is clean, spacious and nicely designed with a beautiful garden attached to it. While the architecture is a bit too modern for my tastes, truth be told, it’s a massive improvement to what had been there previously.

A magnificent Shakespearean play. A great theatre overlooking the water. A brilliant day to have a rare moment of playing hooky.

The perfect combination, all things considered!

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.