“Pericles” it’s a bit of a mess. Spanning decades and traversing the ancient Mediterranean like a deeply flawed carnival cruise, this Shakespeare play combines comedy, tragedy and Christian allegory. There are two assassination plots, two shipwrecks, a brothel, a puzzle, a tournament, and some very handy pirates. Deliberately anachronistic, it was described by Ben Jonson, a rival playwright, as “a musty story” and “stale”.
Well, who better to address this confusion than a company that called Fiasco? A contrived theater ensemble founded by a half-dozen Brown MFA graduates, Fiasco has a soft spot for Shakespeare’s least favorite plays. The company broke out in 2011 with a production of “Cymbeline” and later staged “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” (The 2017 production of Fiasco with a more crowd-pleasing “Twelfth Night”? An outlier.)
Rather than relying on the published text of “Pericles,” Fiasco has set much of the poetry to music—sometimes providing original words—and interspersed excerpts from prose by George Wilkins, a pamphleteer and publican. (Wilkins is often cited as a co-author of the play, mainly because scholars do not believe that Shakespeare could have written anything as fragmentary as the first two acts.)
Company member and director Ben Steinfeld directs this revised script Classic Stage Company using Fiasco’s playbook for the poor theater — a mostly bare stage furnished with charisma, invention, wit and song. “A miracle may be coming your way,” promises an early number.
In the hectic first half, this approach falters. Pericles (Paco Tolson at first, then Tatiana Wechsler, Noah Brody, and finally Devin E. Haqq) goes to so many places in such a short amount of time that the characters and climates become blurred, especially without the help of sets that differentiate each country. As Steinfeld’s narrator admits, “Now this is just an empty space/It’s hard to give a sense of place.” (No set designers are credited, though Ashley Rose Horton designed the vaguely Greek costumes and Mexly Couzin the golden lighting.)
The setting can feel sparse – a satin sheet represents a shipwreck – although extratextual moments such as the jousting tournament are staged with the greatest vigor. And while the idea of having four actors take turns playing Pericles is wise about the ways a man can change over the course of a lifetime, it diminishes interest and identification with the character.
Midway through, “Pericles” finds its feet, mostly because the action shifts to Pericles’ daughter Marina, played by the luminous Emily Young. This also marks the play’s shift away from struggle and loss and toward redemption and joy, more natural keys to Fiasco, which has always excelled at comedy. The brothel scenes, in which a chaste Marina reforms would-be clients, are glamorous. And the ending, among Shakespeare’s best, is suitably moving. But the main treat here, as in every Fiasco performance, is watching the actors work with such fluency and communication, supporting and enjoying each other’s work. That’s not much of a miracle, but it’s reason enough to set sail.
Pericles
Through March 24 at Classic Stage Company Manhattan. classicstage.org. Operating time: 2 hours.