By Helen Musa

The Mill Theatre is taking on one of Shakespeare’s more rarely-produced plays, The Winter’s Tale, as its first youth production.

It is the story in which the jealous King Leontes, of Sicily, falsely accuses his heavily pregnant wife, Hermione, of infidelity with his best friend, Polixenes, King of Bohemia.

Hermione apparently dies, their baby daughter Perdita is abandoned and raised by shepherds in Bohemia, and 16 years later returns to Sicily, where a miraculous statue of Hermione comes to life in a scene of redemption.

When director Heidi Silberman was asked to direct The Mill Theatre’s first youth production, company director Lexi Sekuless had a simple suggestion.

“It’ll be August, so you should do The Winter’s Tale.”

After all, what’s not to like? Shipwrecks, disguises, young lovers, pastoral nonsense and the world’s most famous stage direction: “Exit, pursued by a bear”.

I caught up with Silberman and members of her cast during rehearsals to find out more.

At the door I was greeted by designer Tania Jobson. Although the preview photographs suggest everyone is wearing furs and feathers, the costuming is more subtle than that. Jobson, who is tackling both production and costume design for the first time, has drawn much of her visual inspiration from Game of Thrones.

“I’m imagining a Game of Thrones scenario where King’s Landing meets the Vikings,” she says.

Her Sicily is sophisticated, ordered and political, while Bohemia is ancient, earthy and deeply connected to nature, never mind Shakespeare’s eccentric geography.

Jobson has used colour to distinguish the two worlds. Sicily is dressed in royal reds, silvers and blacks, complete with family crests, velvets and formal court dress, while the Bohemians wear rugged earth tones.

The earthy approach came from Silberman herself. Even Perdita, the princess raised as a shepherd’s daughter, wears practical country clothing rather than the traditional white smock.

And then there is that famous bear.

As production designer, Jobson has been working with the crew on a solution which, she hints enigmatically, may involve sheep. We’ll simply have to be there to see what happens.

Enter Max Vincent Wilson, the second-year arts and law student at the ANU who plays Leontes and, he proudly adds, also a sheep.

It is his first role outside school and university, although through the ANU Shakespeare Society he has played Oberon and appeared in Lysistrata.

As an actor, Wilson knows he must find the humanity inside the jealous king.

“I can’t just play madness,” he says. “I can’t write him off; that would be boring, even though there are times when he does lean into madness.”

He has spent rehearsals considering what drives Leontes into such destructive jealousy. Polixenes, he believes, is naturally more joyful and open, and, coincidentally, actor Jarrah Palethorpe, who plays him, is taller than Wilson, another detail that feeds Leontes’ insecurities.

“But Leontes is not just a boring, evil king, so I’m not going to let audiences simply write him off,” he asserts.

Silberman has also been wrestling with the play’s ending.

“Leontes doesn’t necessarily win when Hermione comes back,” she says. “It takes a while to learn to trust again, especially after living with someone capable of such violence.”

For her, the comedy is equally important. During rehearsals I watch her patiently shaping a comic scene, encouraging actors to linger over long vowels and key words to bring Shakespeare’s language to life. 

With only eight actors taking on around 30 roles, she has had to make significant cuts, placing much of the comedy in the hands of the shepherds, with the sheep now played by puppets.

The result is a brisk 80-minute production without an interval.

Although this is The Mill’s first youth production, Silberman is keen to stress that it is not a school production.

“We’re exposing emerging artists to the world of theatre with the expectations of a professional production,” she says. 

The Winter’s Tale plays at The Mill Theatre, Fyshwick, August 5- 8 (previews) and August 12-15.

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