The Winter's Tale Director's Note

“It is required you do awake your faith.”
-Paulina, The Winter’s Tale

As Mamillius, the young prince in The Winter’s Tale, says, “A sad tale’s best for winter.” And in the first half of The Winter’s Tale, a sad tale is exactly what Shakespeare gives us. A beautiful family is destroyed in the blink of an eye by a sudden and inexplicable rush of jealousy and rage that overwhelms Leontes—the father, husband and king of this sad tale. In The Winter’s Tale the health of our family units is inextricably tied to the health of our larger societies. This is a world in which men as leaders are given power from an early age, but not the tools to regulate their emotions. When Leontes and later Polixenes are faced with their greatest fears (seeming betrayal and exclusion by those they love most: Leontes’ wife Hermione and Polixenes’ son Florizel) they lash out in rage and marshal their power for destruction. But can we blame them? After all, as men bred from boyhood to rule, it seems their domestic and civil societies have given them few other emotional tools to employ when they perceive a threat. But fortunately, they are not alone…in both the structured and sophisticated world of Sicilia and the more communal, rural world of Bohemia there are people like Hermione, Paulina and Camillo who believe in the hard work of change and the redemptive power of forgiveness. They have faith that Leontes and Polixenes are capable of this work, and that not simply Hermione, but the entire community can do the mysterious internal work to find forgiveness so that the tragic half of The Winter’s Tale is simply the beginning of the story. And a new future and a new way of being together, as a family and as a society, can be the sequel.

Over the past few months, a different title for The Winter’s Tale has occurred to me as our daily headlines about the unchecked power of our leaders, combined with unruly passion, leads to devastating consequences for our society. I would propose: The Winter’s Tale or Shakespeare’s Recipe for Combatting Tyranny. The first and most essential ingredient is community. Without that we are lost. Then we have to add the hardest of work towards actual change, combined with faith that over Time (perhaps 16 years?) forgiveness of each other and ourselves will be possible. With The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare seems to suggest that if each of those ingredients is honored as deeply as we can, then we’re able to manifest the greatest miracle of all: redemption. A way forward, in spite of all of our mistakes and failures, becomes possible. It is a gift to be telling this story about the unique and vital power of community in one of the most potent communities of artists and audiences I’ve ever experienced. It awakens my faith that whatever unfolds in tomorrow’s headlines, we’ll find our way through it together.

-Shana Cooper, Director of The Winter's Tale