A king with a pretty daughter to give away, and a riddle for her potential suitors to solve...
A prince looking for a wife, willing to jump through whatever silly hoops the princess' father puts before him...
That's not too complicated a beginning for a story by William Shakespeare. Yet there's something terribly unnerving about the way this opening scene to "Pericles" plays out, and it plays out quite well in Seattle Shakespeare Company's haunting new production.
Antiochus (Todd Jefferson Moore), king of Antioch, his heart not entirely in the task of finding his daughter (Molly Tomhave) a husband, puts out word that would-be spouses need only answer a strange puzzle in order to win the girl's hand. One caveat: If a challenger gets the answer wrong, he dies.
Along comes Pericles (Reginald Andre Jackson), Prince of Tyre, who makes a rapid if furtive love connection with the princess, then tries on the riddle. He immediately knows the answer: Antiochus is sleeping with his own daughter, and has a perverse need to say so, albeit indirectly.
Has Antiochus set a trap for any rival smart enough to figure out the truth? Whatever, the world suddenly seems a more dangerous and unlucky place for poor Pericles. Unlike most Shakespeare protagonists in positions of power, he is almost a stock hero with an expansive and decisive personality. Running from an Antioch assassin and a situation he could not have foreseen, Pericles will hereafter find his best intentions regularly torpedoed by fate and the pathological weirdness of others.
There's a shipwreck, and a wife, Thaisa (Alycia Delmore), and daughter, Marina (Kate Czajkowski), both lost to him. There's a major betrayal by two friends, and much else. Pericles, who personally rescued the starving denizens of Tarsus among other good deeds, wonders what the gods have against him.
What SSC's "Pericles" has is a firm grasp on the mythic elements of this story. "Pericles" is a hero's journey as Joseph Campbell would describe it. The Tyrean prince doesn't see the point of his life until long after he settles down, and time washes up the bounty of his deeds on the shore of destiny.
On a spacious but sparse set that evokes the interiors of castles, ships, and a brothel, among other things, this "Pericles" is intended to be deeply stirring, a shamanic experience with a sometimes ancient feeling. The rounded movements of actors' arms during strange, dreamy dance choreography (by the play's director, Sheila Daniels, and Peter Dylan O'Connor) is enough to automatically awaken one's subconscious to the story's universal elements.
The play's language, which often sounds like something much older and simpler than Shakespeare (certainly there are scholarly debates about a possible mixed authorship for "Pericles"), is at times more deliberate than lyrical. At other points - especially beginning in the third act, which some experts say is where Shakespeare's hand is actually felt - the dialogue dazzles, swoops and penetrates.
Daniels and the cast are certainly up to it all, though the fourth act, set in the aforementioned brothel, is uncomfortably broad in its comic take on the irony of a virgin turning johns into paragons of virtue. The final act has its own problems with predictability and taking too long to state the obvious. The principal actors cross over, a bit, into bathos, but it's probably impossible not to do so under the circumstances.
Still, "Pericles" gets under one's skin with its unusual, fable-like atmosphere, plus flashes of Shakespeare's wit and unsettling insights into our capacity for craving, jealousy and other black spots on the soul.
