The Winter's Tale

Love, Brazilian style: Florizel (Keith Paxton) wants to samba with Perdita (Amanda Salazar) (Courtesy of Bret Brookshire)

The Winter's Tale

In using tango and samba to distinguish between the two worlds of The Winter's Tale – wintry Sicilia, where things die, and summery Bohemia, where things are born – Austin Shakespeare Artistic Director Ann Ciccolella is on to something. The former – sensual in a darkly dramatic way, two bodies in a tight embrace, hinting at volatile passion and possession – echoes the Sicilian king Leontes' fevered suspicions of his wife Hermione and best friend Polixenes in a carnal clench and feeds his vindictive pursuit of punishment, The latter's lively pulse, with drums exuberantly pounding out rhythms of release, is ripe for the Bohemian sheep-shearing feast that is a centerpiece of the play after its 16-year leap forward in time. One is personal, the other communal; one shadow, the other sunlight, as it is in the locales that Shakespeare presented.

The connection made conceptually, however, doesn't always show up in the director's production. Sicilia – here, Argentina – is indeed a chilly place, though it owes as much to the formality and reserve on the part of the actors as the setting. Michael Miller's Leontes displays a cold fury that seems fueled by a betrayal of his royal authority rather than his marriage bed, and Nancy Eyermann's Hermione responds with the tears of a long-suffering spouse resigned to her husband's estrangement. Swept up in their individual feelings of anger and sorrow, the two show few signs of the passion they claim to share or the bonds of family life. They seem to be moving on separate tracks, and for their break to strike us as tragic and their eventual reunion moving, well, it takes two to tango.

The mood lightens and the air warms somewhat when we move to Bohemia/Brasilia, and yet, despite the spirited dance sequences and comedic business, there remains a curious lack of emotional connection. As the lovestruck ingenues Perdita and Florizel, Amanda Salazar and Keith Paxton seem genuinely fond of each other, but other actors channel so much of their energies into comic schtick – funny voices, exaggerated gestures, broad reactions, pratfalls – and devote so little to the heart that makes even the most clownish figures human that the characters don't seem all that engaged with one another or the stakes they face very high. Thus, when the scene shifts back to Argentina and an older and allegedly penitent Leontes (piety edges out humility in Miller's portrayal here), the restoration of loved ones and joyful communion after so many long years of loss and grief has a somewhat casual air about it. As the play approaches perhaps the most magical and moving conclusion in all Shakespeare, Amy Downing's resolutely steadfast Paulina strives to infuse the scene with a sense of gravity and enchantment, but the actors seem out of step with the wonder of the moment. It's as if they cannot quite hear the music in the Bard's text.