There aren’t many Shakespearean plays that one misses out on during a lifetime of theatregoing, but Pericles is likely to be one. I’d never seen this play before, and, indeed hadn’t looked at the text for at least 45 years. But there’s no doubt this is a fascinating play – rarely can the old phrase “from the sublime to the ridiculous” be so appropriate concerning the pen of our Beloved Bard.

With more episodes and locations than your average picaresque novel, we follow the fortunes of Pericles as he leaves Tyre (where he is Prince) to sail to Antioch, where he hopes to marry the unnamed Princess of that city state. To win her hand, he must answer a riddle; failure to answer it results in death. Pericles solves it in an instant, but making the solution public also results in death – bit of a Catch-22 there, probably a riddle worth avoiding. Therefore he flees Antioch before he can be murdered. Next, he reaches Tarsus, stopping by to offer food to the famine-stricken city; shipwrecked on leaving Tarsus, he lands in Pentapolis, where King Simonides is allowing the winner of a jousting contest to marry his daughter Thaisa. Naturally our hero wins the contest, and Thaisa’s hand. But all is not well; sailing back to Tyre, they are shipwrecked (again) and Thaisa dies giving birth to a daughter, Marina. Following tradition, Thaisa’s body is placed in a coffin and cast off into the waters, never to be seen again. Or is she…?

That’s enough storytelling to fill a book and we’ve only just reached the interval. Pericles must be the direct opposite of Waiting for Godot, where, famously, nothing happens. Here, everything that could possibly happen, happens. However, the early scenes of the play – up till Pericles’ arrival in Pentapolis – are (there’s no point beating about the bush) absolutely awful. Not, I hasten to add, because of the RSC’s production, Tamara Harvey’s direction or the company’s acting; it’s simply the words with which they have to grapple.

It is largely believed that the play is a collaboration between Shakespeare and An Other Writer; Shakespeare wrote the good bits and AOW did the rest. The mystery man is likely to be George Wilkins, an innkeeper, criminal and pamphleteer, and an associate of the King’s Men acting company, hence his familiarity with Shakespeare and his work. The language in those opening scenes is flat but garbled; intractably impersonating the florid style of the silver poets who had gone before, but falling far short of the standard required. Fortunately, the use of judicious cuts combined with the happy circumstance that Pericles is one of Shakespeare’s shortest works, means we can get on with the decent meat of the play after about half an hour or so.

The average Collected Shakespeare will list the play as one of the comedies. But there is some tough material here: incest, kidnapping to be sold into prostitution, death during childbirth; frankly, not a lot to laugh at. However, these elements are balanced with some truly engaging scenes and performances, resulting in many feelgood moments and comic sequences. The highlight of the production is King Simonides’ not-so-secret machinations to engineer a marriage between Thaisa and Pericles, a blissfully funny performance by Christian Patterson. All the scenes set in the brothel prickle with danger and corruption; and if you love a happy ending, I can’t think of a bigger jump from despair to elation than that experienced by Pericles in Act Five.

Jonathan Fensom’s simple set is dominated by ropes, suspended and intertwining; a perfect choice for a play where so many scenes are set at sea. Claire van Kampen’s evocative music is delicately and moving played by Elinor Peregrin’s team of five musicians, strong on woodwind and percussion. The text has been smartly cut and revised so that what remains of Gower’s chorus-type introductions to each act have been given to Marina, even before the audience realises it is she who is speaking. There’s only one directorial decision that jars; the artificial and showy use of hands aloft by the background ensemble. Perhaps it’s meant to recreate the dumbshows of the original text; whatever, it just looks silly. Stop it.

Alfred Enoch gives a compelling performance as Pericles; a truly noble character who rises above all his misfortunes to remain magnanimous, honest and beneficent. Mr Enoch embodies these virtues throughout the play with his clarity of interpretation, physical agility and the sheer emotion of that final scene. As his long lost Marina, the ever-reliable Rachelle Diedericks is a chip off the old block, conveying the essence of purity and decency, pleading her case for survival with lucid clarity. There are also excellent performances from Philip Bird as the super-reasonable Helicanus, Christian Patterson as the excitable Simonides, Leah Haile as the modest Thaisa, Kel Matsena as the noble Lysimachus and Jacqueline Boatswain as the kindly Cerimon and a truly villainous Bawd, matched with an equally vicious Pander played by Felix Hayes.

An excellent opportunity to see a rarely performed Shakespeare; not exactly a masterpiece but containing some of his best characterisations and individual scenes. After Pericles leaves Stratford on 21 September, it transfers to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater from 20 October.

Production Photos by Johan Persson

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!