The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Fiasco/CSC’s Pericles

By Ross

Here they all come, in true Classic Stage Company tradition, harmonizing deliciously to tell the tale of Pericles, one of the more complex and confusing Shakespearian plays to follow. Or so I’ve been told by my fellow theatre junkie. But in the hands of Fiasco Theater and director/performer Ben Steinfeld (Fiasco’s Twelfth Night), this pitch perfect production sails strongly forwards through the choppy waters seemingly without a cautionary care in the world. It finds festive fun and song on every shore, and with a cast of pros running true and strong in the wild waters of this Shakespearian play, filled with storms, pirates, and incestuous king, a love-struck princess, a frustrated sex trade madame, and a young pure-hearted daughter (Emily Young) who can gloriously talk the virtue back into any man’s heart, the play rides the waves with aplomb, never failing to entertain and connect with surprising beauty and warmth.

On a quick solid ship, courtesy of the simple but clever set made up of wooden boxes and one very useful coffin, thanks to props supervisor, Sarah Pencheff-Martin, that stands and floats in for more than its one main use, Fiasco Theater‘s Pericles sails forward, led in and sung out by narrator, director, and musician Steinfeld (who is credited also with the music and lyrics). The tale of the then Prince of Tyre is told with glorious bright light and humor, to soothe our souls and calm our fears, we are told. And with a solid and charming “hey, hey, we are on our way“, our imagination is completely engaged and enticed, filled like sails on a ship to “live in this empty space” and embrace the miracle that will most definitely come our way.

Deliciously and ingeniously recrafting and rerouting the play’s wild wanderings, this joyful production dances and sings, engulfing us all in wave after wondrous wave of solid storytelling. The backdrop scrim could have had more volume and movement in it to embrace the wild tempests that come along all too frequently in Pericles‘ journey through life and death, and back to life again, but that feels like a small quibble in a pretty perfectly manuveured journey through some rough waters. Miraculously and lovingly played out inside Steinfeld’s wise rendering, four actors: Paco Tolson (Fiasco/CSC’s Twelfth Night), Noah Brody (CSC’s As You Like It), Tatiana Wechsler (Paper Mill’s Benny & Joon), and Devin E. Haqq (59E59’s Knives in Hens), are each given their moment to shine in the title role, handing the baton off to one another, usually amid a storm at sea. They each discover their solid footing in their individual unpacking and rendering, with Haqq finding the loving way into my heart with surprising and tearful force in the end.

The cast as a whole does an ingenious job, including (but nit only) Jessie Austrian (Fiasco’s Into the Woods) who scores big as the frustrated proprietor of a bordello where the noble and virtuous daughter of Pericles, played to perfection by Emily Young (Broadway’s Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) is sold too, much to her dismay. Paul L. Coffey (Fiasco’s Merrily We Roll Along) delivers the goods as Pericles’s honorable adviser, Helicanus; and Andy Grotelueschen (Broadway’s Tootsie) shines hilariously bright as King Simonides. The cast as a whole find their way through these choppy waters in joyful abundance, navigating all the waves of humor while dutifully honoring the text and the emotional core with gracious ease.

A riddle stands between marriage and death in the beginning, creepily, i might add, but somewhere in between the shipwrecked treachery and the tender, manually revolving love song, some charming asides and generally touching engagements keep us totally tuned in to their voyage. With a glorious recap at the top of act two, we discover Pericles’ family washed away from each other in three different places feeling lost and filled with misery, thanks to some life affirming magic, monster mother envy, and a gang of rogue pirates, who actually save rather than pillage. Our hearts stay fully engaged, and our humor, lovingly intact and activated. The numerous sea tempests find wonderful accents and spice hidden in floating wooden boxes from so many of Shakespeare’s other plays, but in the hands of Fiasco Theater, this one telling feels as fresh and alive as one could possibly hope for, with many thanks given to the subtle good work of lighting designer Mextly Couzin (Off-Broadway’s JOB) and costume designer Ashley Rose Horton (Ars Nova’s Those Lost Boys).

It’s a wild and windy journey, this Pericles as written by Shakespeare, through more lands and shores than one could keep track of, but at Classic Stage Company in the East Village, this play has found its way safely and joyously to its handsome docking. The wind blows strong and true into its solid sails, as this clever production of Pericles by Fiasco Theater takes you on a journey through tumultuous tempests, where all might feel lost, or get lost, but all here will be happily found, safe and joyful on the dry shores of reunion.