Free Shakespeare in the Park celebrates 20th Anniversary with 'The Winter's Tale'

By Ryder Miller

In late August and early September, neighborhood thespians will be able to leave their homes in the morning and travel to Golden Gate Park to enact a Shakespearean melodrama for their neighbors to watch in the afternoon.

This dream will come true for a number of Richmond and Sunset district residents who are involved in the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival's 20th Anniversary presentation of The Winter's Tale.

In performance this month in Pleasanton and Cupertino, The Winter's Tale will be performed in Golden Gate Park, west of the Conservatory of Flowers, from August 31 to Sept. 29. Showtimes are on Saturday and Sundays at 1:30 p.m.

The Winter's Tale is a black comedy, which might turn off the crowd with its tragic early acts, but it turns into a lighter comedy later in the play. 

The early scenes take place in Sicilia, which play Director Paul Barry describes as "a repressive, puritanical place where cruelty and jealousy can flourish." The action then continues in Bohemia, an "idealized" California which Barry says encourages "love, tolerance, song and laughter."

"We really want people to know that they should stick around for the second act. It is not all just a downer," said Charles McCue, producing artistic director for the SF Shakespeare Festival. "There is happy stuff in the second act."

Ernest Schanzer, in his introduction to The Winter's Tale in his Penguin Books edition, writes: "The main intention of the title may therefore be to emphasize that this play tells an incredible story. It has been claimed that the purpose of the reference is to remind us of the story's unreality, to break the dramatic illusion, and thus keep the audience detached and critical. But is not its effect rather the opposite: to heighten our sense of the story's reality, to make us feel that what we are witnessing on the stage is life, which is stranger than fiction? Yet by calling his play not 'A Winter's Tale' but 'The Winter's Tale' he may have wanted to refer us to the tale told by Leontes's little son, Mamillius, at the opening of Act II." 

Some of the neighbors participating in the play include Terry Bamberger and David Austin-Groen from the Sunset District, and set designer Kate Boyd from the Richmond District. Bamberger, who plays the female lead Paulina, advocates to protect King Leonte's wife and child from the king's jealous rage. Performing Shakespeare in the park is a dream come true, says Bamberger, a fifth generation San Franciscan.

"My dream has always been to be a  professional actor in San Francisco" Bamberger said. "My dream was to be able to stay here."

Shakespeare veteran actor Austin-Groen plays the bear in one of Shakespeare's most famous bit of stage direction.

"It is a very famous piece of stage direction," said Austin-Groen. "It is always a sticky point in a lot of productions because it is difficult to stage without it becoming a bit of absurd comedy."

The Winter's Tale is rarely performed.

"You can only see Midsummer's Night so many times before you want to shoot yourself in the head," said Austin-Groen. "This is a very poetic play. It is not commonly done. I am certain a lot of people never even heard of The Winter's Tale."

The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival usually produces comedies in the park, rather than Shakespeare's more famous tragedies. In September and October the troupe will also be performing Romeo and Juliet at the Lorraine Hansberry Theater.

"It's more about what appeals to the public. We want to do something that is a lot of fun. This show does have its tragic elements, though it does have a lot of comedy," said Richmond District resident Rebbecca Ennals, the festival's promotion and sales director.

Shakespeare has endured because he was capable of capturing the human condition and he was also an amazing story teller and poet. He was an Elizabethan writer who was successful at the turn of the 16th century. Shakespeare has been commemorated recently by Tom Stoppard, who wrote the screenplays for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love, and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh, who has brought many of the immortal bard's work to the big screen.

"He always addresses people's very basic conditions, which is timeless," said Austin-Groen.

"Doing Shakespeare, there is a certain amount of romance that people bring just because it is Shakespeare. Just because of the language and the plots it puts people in a different mindset," he said.

But Austin-Groen, who will be leaving his mark in the woods this summer, said Shakespeare is better seen than read. "I hate reading Shakespeare. It should never be taught in an English class, it should be taught in a drama class."

For more information about the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, call (415) 422-2222.