THE HANGOVER REPORT – Fiasco Theater’s playful, lucid storytelling shows off the Bard’s PERICLES in the best light

The company of Fiasco Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s “Pericles” at Classic Stage Company (photo by Austin Ruffer).

Fiasco Theater scored one of its first notable successes more than a decade ago with its delightful, rightfully acclaimed staging of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Since then, the company has dabbled with — among other classic works of theater — the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, occasionally to mixed results (e.g., an inspired Into the Woods, a mis-guided Merrily We Roll Along). Now they’ve returned to another lesser-known romance by the Bard — Pericles — which opened last night at Off-Broadway’s Classic Stage Company.

I’m happy to report that the production hits the sweet spot, smartly utilizing the company’s greatest strengths. As an ensemble-based theater company with a playful, scrappy aesthetic, the folks at Fiasco first and foremost put an emphasis on lucid and incisive storytelling. Indeed, like the company’s aforementioned 2011 production of Cymbeline, the Fiasco “spin” shows off the episodic, often ridiculously plotted Pericles in the best light, distilling the sprawling play into a joyous, thoughtfully shaped theatrical experience that’s easily digestible. And combined with some ingenious albeit human-scaled stagecraft (the efficient, fast-paced direction is credited to ensemble member Ben Steinfeld) and the seamless incorporation of some pleasant original songs, the charming end result is theater-making that lands somewhere between heartfelt and tongue-in-cheek.

Over the years, Fiasco’s longtime ensemble members have developed an uncanny chemistry with each other. The way they instinctually craft scenes — as if spirited kids in a playground — is a masterclass in generosity and teamwork. Given the relatively small company, the buoyant, resourceful actors necessarily play multitudes of roles (to boot, the title role of Pericles is shared between four actors), which they expertly pull off. Even if this occasionally means exchanging depth of characterization with broad, no-frills portrayals, so be it. Pericles is a kind of work where such swaps minimally registers.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

PERICLES
Off-Broadway, Theater
Fiasco Theater / Classic Stage Company
2 hours (with one intermission)
Through March 24

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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