Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Target Margin Theater leans in on the storytelling in its scrappy yet playful retelling of PERICLES

• By drediman
• March 8, 2023
• No Comments

Tonight at the Doxsee, Target Margin Theater’s production of Pericles opened way Off-Broadway in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. Written mostly by William Shakespeare (scholars attribute about half the text to the Bard, the balance likely to George Wilkins), the play tells the swashbuckling story of the titular prince who travels the seas — à la the journeys of Sindbad — maligned by a string of bad luck over the years.

This Pericles commences in tongue-in-cheek manner, alternating between Shakespeare’s — and others’ — underlying text and sarcastic contemporary asides. But as the company sinks its teeth into the adventuresome, ultimately moving story, the text increasingly incorporates the original text, culminating in a powerful, redemptive resolution that would make Dickens proud. Target Margin’s stylish production leans in on and continues the company’s fascination with collective, immersive storytelling (most evident in the epic One Night, the company’s hugely ambitious 9-hour retelling of The One Thousand and One Nights), an approach that works well with Pericles’ episodic and eventful tale.

Directed by Target Margin artistic director David Herskovits (who is also credited as the sound designer), the scrappy yet playful staging seems cut from the same fabric as the company’s recent storytelling-focused productions. The seven-strong company is led by Eunice Wong, who plays the title role alongside some of her fellow Target Margin usual suspects. Obviously of the same mind, together they cast a spell that’s distinctively Target Margin’s.

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PERICLES
Off-Broadway, Play
Target Margin Theater
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Through March 26