Exit, Pursued by a Bear
Whyte Recital Hall, Royal Irish Academy of Music
★★★☆☆
“Exit, pursued by a bear” is a stage direction from The Winter’s Tale. Shakespeare’s play, which oscillates between tragedy and romantic comedy, involves two kingdoms ruled by long-standing friends, the Sicilian king Leontes and the Bohemian Polixenes. During a state visit by Polixenes, Leontes is haunted by paranoid delusions: he suspects his pregnant wife of committing adultery with the Bohemian monarch, and plots his assassination.
Polixenes manages to escape, but the wheel of tragedy has been released, and events go careening downhill, culminating in death and exile for several members of the Sicilian court. The narrative returns 16 years later, as the two families gain a measure of redemption through the loving union of Florizel, son of Polixenes, and Perdita, long-lost daughter of Leontes.
Pan Pan theatre company’s reimagining of the story relies, in a playful twist, on the bear whose sudden, violent appearance in act three spells a grisly end for one of the characters. Some historians suggest that Shakespeare intended for a real bear to appear onstage, which wasn’t unheard of in Elizabethan England. (The play is typically dated to around 1610 or 1611.) Others favour the idea that a costumed actor would have played up his ridiculous appearance for laughs.
Exit, Pursued by a Bear is, in essence, a loose retelling. The company picks key scenes from Shakespeare’s plot, and the performers deliver their lines almost word for word. Manuel Zschunke is particularly compelling as Leontes, embodying the king’s manic-depressive state of murderous jealousy in the first half and lucid, repentant attitude in the second.
Exit, Pursued by a Bear: Pan Pan’s loose retelling of Shakespeare contains flashes of real artistry
Breaking: Two characters, four actors and a rotating series of scenes, emotions and meanings
Guest Host Stranger Ghost: A genuinely original high concept gets its first outing
Sandpaper on Sunburn: A humorous, compelling portrayal of what it means to be neurodivergent
The interpretive element that distinguishes the production from a straightforward adaptation consists mostly of digressions. Some introduce the episodes to the audience, as at the very beginning, when the roles for Shakespeare’s drama are distributed among the actors, all of whom are in bear suits. Some interrupt the narrative with momentary asides or distractions, such as Faith Jones sitting to one side of the stage, wearing headphones and chewing a toy spider, as the plot unfolds.
The show, which is directed by Gavin Quinn, contains flashes of real artistry from the company, perhaps most memorably Mollyanna Ennis’s show-stealing dance about three-quarters of the way through; her routine electrifies the room like a lightning bolt breaking loose onstage.
Unfortunately, there are also moments that don’t quite land, particularly the humour: gags often seem a little off the mark, and comic routines stretch slightly long before going limp.
Shakespeare’s dialogue is, of course, evergreen, and while the rest is something of an uneven experience, the talent of the performers pulls you through.
Continues at Whyte Recital Hall, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, until Sunday, October 13th
