By Galen Simmons

Part tragedy, part comedy, part tragic comedy, part comic tragedy.

Whatever one might identify Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale as, the Stratford Festival and director Antoni Cimolino’s 2025 production of one of the Bard’s stranger plays certainly fits the description.

The play is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ride with one half dedicated King Leontes’ (Graham Abbey) misplaced suspicion that his pregnant wife, Hermione (Sara Topham), is cheating on him with his friend and geopolitical ally, Pollixenes (André Sills), leading to the death of both Leontes’ wife and young son, Mamillius (Philip Myers).

The other half of play turns light, funny and pastoral as, 16 years later, Lenotes and Hermione’s daughter, Perdita (Marissa Orjalo), who was abandoned as a newborn on a distant island, finds love and happiness with her adoptive father, Old Sheppherd (Tom McCamus), and brother, Young Sheppherd (Christo Graham), as well as her new love, Florizel (Austin Eckert), who also happens to be King Pollixenes’ son.

It all ties together at the end with the reuniting of father and daughter, as well as old political allies, and the somewhat mysterious return of Hermione by way of stone statue.

Having only just now written all of that down on paper, it’s clear this play has the potential to be confusing and somewhat meandering at times, yet the cast and crew in this production handled it marvellously.

Much of the heavy lifting in this play is on the shoulders of the actors. The performances of Abbey, Topham, Sills and even Myers help set the stage for an otherwise happy family with plenty of friends and everything to look forward to. As Abbey’s portrayal of Leontes’ creeping suspicions bubble to the surface and begin to tear his family apart, the innocent disbelief and bewilderment put out by the other actors in the play’s first half make the sudden and somewhat unexplained deaths of Hermione and Mamillius that much more tragic.

Almost like a switch is flipped, the second half of the play is introduced with humour and levity, and plenty of pastoral celebration and dancing. The choreography and set decoration complete with floral arrangements and ribbons, as well as the colourful costumes, signal a marked change from the prior tragedy.

But it’s the comedy that really makes this part of The Winter’s Tale enjoyable for me – as with all of Shakespeare’s comedies – which is performed with excellent timing and just the right amount of playfulness by McCamus, Graham and, my favourite performance of them all, Geraint Wyn Davies as the rogue conman, Autolycus. Davies’ portrayal of a character willing to do anything or be anyone to swindle the other characters on stage out of their money, gold and jewels not only provides the humour I needed to keep my attention, but it also moves the play forward in fun and unexpected ways.

All the while, the heart and soul of this production are carried by Florizel and Perdita’s undying love for one another, for which Eckert and Orjalo seem to have the right onstage chemistry.

I should also give a nod to this production’s special effects. The opening and closing scenes featuring Myers with Lucy Peacock, dressed in angel’s wings, as Time, and the sequence with Topham standing motionless as a statue of Hermione that comes back to life amidst swirling mists are quite impactful emotionally, and fully captured my interest.

Overall, this production did an excellent job introducing me to one of Shakespeare’s weirder works and proving once again tragedy and comedy go hand in hand.

The Winter’s Tale runs at the Tom Patterson Theatre until Sept. 27.