Theater Review: "The Winter's Tale" by Valley Shakespeare Festival

SHELTON - Valley Shakespeare Festival is celebrating ten years with a lively production of “The Winter’s Tale.” Shakespeare’s comedy/late romance continues at 7:30pm in Veteren’s Memorial Park in Shelton through Sunday, July 17. The production then moves to Quarry Walk in Oxford for a run from July 21 through July 24.

This is Shakespeare’s work with a lost princess, a very jealous King, and, yes, “exit…pursued by a bear.”

The Valley Shakespeare production was adapted, directed and designed by Tom Simonetti, who is the founder and the executive director since 2013 of VSF. Last year, Simonetti began to teach theater at Woodland Regional High School, while maintaining his position as the Director of Drama at Masuk High School in Monroe.

What Simonetti does so well is making The Bard’s work come to life in a contemporary way and thereby making the dialogue easier to follow. There are a handful of added “bits” delivered in current English that never really disrupt the flow of the language and add plenty of comedy. A few of the characters break the fourth wall, involving the audience with hilarious results.

In this curtain speech, the director warned the audience that while the first parts of the play are sad, the second half is very funny. In his director’s note, Simonetti notes that this piece deals a lot with time, jumping 16 years between the two acts, the race against time to vindicate a queen, and the time it takes for a kingdom to heal. “I think many of us are still healing from the past few years. And the theater can do that,” he adds.

The director chose to set this show between the time periods of the fifties and the seventies because of the major social changes that took place in the United States. In the synopsis printed in the paper program, Vice Chair Art Brennan labels each section of the scenes with the title of a song that fits the action, although another soundtrack punctuates the scene changes. As a group, the players perform a delightful “Proud Mary” in the second act.

I recommend reading the synopsis before the performance begins (and the sun goes down) and during intermission, if possible.

This is a wonderfully talented professional cast hired to bring the story to life for the Valley.

Equity actor Matt Mancuso (“Pericles,” “Henry VIII”) returns to VSF to take on the role of Leontes, the jealous King of Sicilia, as well as the comical role of the Old Shepherd in a bright orange cap and wig. Equity member Jordan Kaplan, a graduate of Stanford University and Brown/Trinity Rep who lives in Croton-on-Hudson, plays Polixines, King of Bohemia, in his first VSF show.

Christie Maturo, an Equity actress who was part of “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding in Las Vegas for many years, portrays Leontes' wrongly accused wife, Hermione, as well as Autolycus
a roguish peddler, vagabond, and pickpocket.

Equity member Eric Bermudez returns to the VSF to portray both Antigonus (Paulina’s husband and defender of the queen) and Florizel, the son of the Bohemian king.

Siena D’Addario, a Brooklyn-based actor and Tisch School of the Arts graduate, plays Time, Mamillus, the young prince of Sicilia and the grown up Perdita. New York based actor and singer Julia Lennon returns to this stage to portray Hermione's ladies-in-waiting Emilia, Dion, a lord, and Mopsa.

Stephen Saxton, who was part of the 2018 VSF season, gets to play Cleomenes, a lord, and the younger shepherd (clown.)

While most of the actors took on two (or more) characters, and did very well with both, the performance of Kendall Segovia stood out in her fourth show with this company. Segovia plays Camillo, an honest Sicilian nobleman, and pulls it off well. She then dons a navy dress to play Paulina, a noblewoman of Sicily and devoted friend of Queen Hermione. She gives an outstanding performance in this meaty role. I was captivated by every movement and every expression by this talented Equity actress.

Technical director is Anthony Simonetti. Costumes designed by Ivy Swinski (“Pericles”) moved from the fifties to the seventies, just as the director wanted to convey. Swinski is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College. Production Stage Manager Kristen L. Kingsley has been working with VSF since its inception and watches over the proceedings from a green tent set up behind the stage.

Lighting designed by Robert Primorac and Spence Sound and Stage, LLC of Monroe and sound by Horizon sound worked well out of the back of a truck parked nearby.

The two acts run two hours, including a ten-minute intermission. The production is FREE (with a suggested $10 donation.) Bring your own chair or blanket, plenty of bug spray, and a picnic to enjoy in the park. I always bring a jacket with a hood for after the sun goes down and to ward off the bugs.

Nancy Sasso Janis has been writing theatre reviews since 2012 as a way to support local theatre venues. She posts reviews of well over 100 productions each year. In 2016, she became a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle. She continues to contribute theatre news, previews, and audition notices to local Patch sites. Reviews of all levels of theatrical productions are posted on Naugatuck Patch and the Patch sites closest to the venue. She recently became a contributor to the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper. Her weekly column and theatre reviews appear in the Thursday Weekend section of the paper.

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