The Winter's Tale

I'm not really sure what the thinking behind The Bridge Project's production of The Winter's Tale was. Let's solve this bifurcated play by making it completely schizophrenic? I can understand the desire to move Shakespeare's plays forward in time, but I'm not sure it's so effective when you have a classical setting complete with a statue that comes to life a la Galatea. And then to take the second act, different enough as is, and insert a folk-singing, anachronistic Ethan Hawke among our frolicking shepherds and nobility in disguise the former of whom perform bawdy dances with balloons? It's like Mendes looked at the play and figured, "Well screw it. It's not exactly Shakespeare's best work so why even bother trying to create a cohesive theatrical experience?"

If that's the case, I don't entirely disagree. It's definitely not one of Shakespeare's masterpieces. In fact, it's not really that good a play at all. You might as well try to do something with it. I'm just saying, maybe pick a thing instead of doing all different things and making it seem even less like one piece than it already does.