Pericles: A New Rock Musical (review)

Pericleshas long been one of Shakespeare's less frequently staged plays, saddled by complaints about its uneven structure, sprawling geography, and expansive time frame (some eighteen years, though it's not unlike The Winter's Talein that regard), not to mention the fact that many believe that George Wilkins, not Shakespeare, wrote the first two acts. Nonetheless, the play has experienced a surge in popularity, with a number of productions in recent years: one in 2005, as part of the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival at Elmwood Park; four in 2007, including Georgia Shakespeare at the Conant Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, RSC at Davidson College in North Carolina, Seattle Shakespeare Company at the Center House Theatre in Washington, and American Shakespeare Center at Blackfriars Playhouse in Virginia; and finally, one in 2009, by Jobsite Theater Company at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center (since renamed the David E. Straz Center) in Florida.

A survey of Shakespeare Bulletinreviews of these recent productions suggests that Jobsite Theater Company's adaptation was one of the more daring, inventive, and, certainly, more postmodern of the revivals. An apt riddle for this dramatic rendering might go something like this: What do you get when you merge Shakespeare's Pericleswith modern day mafia culture and original rock anthems? The answer: the world premiere production of Pericles: A New Rock Musical.

In this lively, campy adaptation, the mob family replaced the royal family. While the plot generally remained intact, Shakespeare's own language was not preserved at all—with the exception of Antiochus' riddle to Pericles. However, the riddle was not spoken but sung as a refrain within a song entitled "Viper," which drew on the king's use of the metaphor of a snake feeding off of itself to allude to his inbreeding with his daughter. The polluted patriarchy of Shakespeare's play, plagued as it is by excessive ambition, jealousy, and competition, lent itself well to the corrupt business dealings and dysfunctional personal meanderings of New York mobsters. The mob mantra "all in the family" was an implicit motif in this adaptation. As a conceptual framework for exploring deviant sexual behavior (most notably incest) in the play, the mantra took on heightened comic perversity throughout the performance. For example, when Marina's foster parents tried to explain her death to Pericles, they not only offered up hilariously ridiculous (and anachronistic) diagnoses such as Stockholm Syndrome and Munchausen Syndrome, but also incriminated one another in the process for their respective sexual misconduct (his pedophile tendencies and alleged lust for his foster child; her alleged lesbian affair).

Shakespeare's Periclescontains some twenty parts altogether. However, in this Periclesredux, the cast was limited to eight actors with all but three (Talia/Ami Sallee Corley, Perry/Stephen Ray, Gower/Joe Popp) doubling or tripling in other minor parts. Characters fittingly received updated or altogether new monikers: Antiochus/Fat Tony; Pericles/ Perry, Prince of Tires; Helicanus/Henry the Fixer; Lysimachus/Lizard; Thasia/Talia; Dionyza/Dion. Costumes and characterization were also appropriately modernized. Lyricist and musician Joe Popp, dressed in faded and worn blue jeans and a white t-shirt, portrayed Gower as an imprisoned rock star. Perry (Stephen Ray) looked the most understated in a striped button-down and grey slacks. The ingenue Marina (Katie Castonguay) garnered attention with an assortment of risqué outfits, from a Brittany Spears-inspired...