Pericles with Great Feeling [Boston Shakespeare Co., 1983]*

The Boston Shakespeare Company's Pericles, Prince ofTyre might be called the bartered Bard. As artistic director Peter Sellars' first production for the company, it is so boldly defined it's downright insistent. It deliberately and brashly calls attention to itself while doing its damnedest to get at the core of what is one of Shakespeare's most neglected plays. Sellars' approach would seem to have taken its stride from the time sweep in the text itself. The directorial style is far more eclectic than the music Sellars has used to italicize certain dramatic scenes (Debussy and Beethoven keeping time with songs by Elmore Jones), but the point is the same: Pericles on an anachronistic slant, Shakespeare made immediate for example, by having the usually stodgy narrator clear his throat when he discovers the audience; by having evil characters in masks; by dancing a minuet to a disco beat that leads to a jitterbug.