The Wintersprookje (or The Winter’s Tale) by Ignace Cornelissen had its world premiere with Het Gevolg but in Amsterdam instead of their usual theatre in Turnhout in 1992. The Italian language premiere followed in 1994 in Acqui Terme and in Germany the play was performed for the first time in 1997 by the group from Theater Grüne Soße in Frankfurt/ Main. Another production by the same company was staged to great acclaim in 2003. This The Winter’s Tale is suitable for children aged 8 and older and lasts about one hour in length.
Like Henry V and Othello, the large cast of Shakespeare‟s original has been reduced to four performers, who each play several characters. Unlike the other two plays however this
The Winter’s Tale has a double layer to it: it is a performance of The Winter’s Tale at the
same time as it is a theatrical reflection on the dynamics within a group of actors. Richard Mol is the director and main actor of the troupe, Ria Pijpers is his assistant as well as an extra and Less Walter and Ilona de Graaf are an actor and an actress respectively. As in Othello the play text specifies twelve different scenes, eight of which are concerned with what happens before the sixteen-year gap and four for events afterwards. There is a prologue, a bear hunt, a short revenge scene, a birth, a scene called „King Freddy and the baby‟, an intermezzo, a tribunal, a thunderstorm, a fair, two scenes called „The lovers‟ and „King Walter at the fair‟ and a final one called „Political asylum‟ (Cornelissen: 1995: p. 3, Szenenfolge/list of scenes). It becomes obvious already that, though the general outline seems the same as in Shakespeare‟s play, it differs in some respects. There is another change which is certainly noteworthy, though it might have been purely accidental on Cornelissen‟s part.
In the Prologue Ilona, Less and Richard introduce themselves to the audience and set up the imagined scene for their play: it is a story of two kings. One of them is bad, malevolent and does not like jokes. According to Less, most women are constantly pregnant since this
king, whose name is Freddy, likes to have a lot of subjects. As becomes apparent in the following scenes King Freddy is the equivalent to Shakespeare‟s Leontes and as such it is of interest that here he is no longer king of Sicily but of Bohemia. In addition, one cannot help but notice that Richard and Less do not get on well with each other. While Richard tries to introduce the story and the two kings, Less is constantly interrupting and complaining about his account until Ilona steps in. Once Richard puts a simple crown on his head the story moves on, although they continue to just narrate it for the time being.
During the bear hunt scene it becomes clear that Less plays the role of Shakespeare‟s Polixenes: he is Walter, King of Sicily, thereby reinforcing the similarity to Robert Greene‟s Pandosto (cp. Appendix B, „Robert Greene‟s Pandosto‟ in the Oxford edition of The Winter’s
Tale: 1998: p. 234-274, here especially p. 234-235), in which the two kingdoms are also
reversed in contrast to Shakespeare‟s The Winter’s Tale. Ilona plays Rita, Queen of Bohemia, Hermione by extension and therefore King Freddy‟s wife, whereas Ria portrays the forester taking care of any potential dead bears once hunted down and shot. Both actors playing kings confirm that King Freddy is a bit strange, he does not have any real friends and Walter is only an acquaintance from their school days in Scotland. They finally find bear tracks but they have two bullets only: King Freddy hides because he is frightened and King Walter shoots the bear, receiving a quick kiss from Queen Rita for his bravery. Once the bear is dead, however, King Freddy appears again and claims the credit for himself: Ria is to take a picture of him with Rita and the bear, but without Walter. The latter is slightly angry, cuts off the bear‟s head, puts it on and runs after Freddy to frighten him as some sort of punishment. It turns out however that this is not such a good idea: King Freddy does not like jokes and this „joke‟ also serves to set the scene for the development of the play. As Rita and Walter or rather Ilona and Less laugh together about King Freddy or Richard, the latter is willing to do everything to
show them their limits. This scene also reinforces the idea that, at the moment, King Freddy and King Walter either do not like each other as such or do not like to be with each other at the moment.
As might be expected, King Freddy takes the next opportunity to revenge himself on King Walter; it could also be said that Richard wants to get back at Less for allowing Ilona to kiss him. All the actors constantly fall out and back into their respective role, which makes for an interesting experience. Although some minor details are different from Shakespeare‟s The
Winter’s Tale, the general plotline in this scene is relatively similar. King Freddy calls for the
forester, or rather Ria, and demands that he leaves his wife and nine children: in King Freddy‟s opinion the forester is to be accused as he did not take care that King Walter, or rather Less, did not have a possibility to mock him with the bear‟s head. Ria, or rather the forester, functions here as some kind of replacement for the original Camillo on the one hand and Antigonus on the other, as can be seen later on. Queen Rita and King Walter have fun together in the background of the stage and kiss each other. King Freddy is irritated by their flirting but Queen Rita informs him that King Walter is returning home to Sicily now. Both Freddy and Rita manage however to convince him to stay one day longer although he has already been with them for a week. Rita and Walter retire. All the way through this conversation Ria, or rather the forester, is packing her suitcase to leave the kingdom but gets called to Freddie once more. He has a suggestion for her: if s/he shoots King Walter for flirting with the queen, he will allow her/him to stay in Bohemia. Like Camillo, Ria/the forester gives in at first but once the king is out of sight and King Walter is onstage again, s/he warns him. They take recourse to a ruse: Ria/ the forester shoots into the air, so that s/he can honestly say s/he fired a shot. Both go offstage and now King Freddy and Queen Rita are arguing much in the same manner as Hermione and Leontes. Rita is exasperated, yet Freddie
insists. He wants to throw her in prison, regardless of what Bobby, their nine-year-old son, thinks about it as well without any respect to Rita‟s current pregnancy: Ilona quickly puts a pillow under her jumper as if Richard had made up this story-line on the spot, there has been no reference to this pregnancy before. They argue about Bobby‟s potential paternity and that of the unborn child but Rita is put into prison nevertheless, no matter how much she insists on her innocence. Unlike in Shakespeare‟s play however, the actors now break out of the play for a while: Less comes back on with King Walter‟s crown in his hand and informs everybody that Walter fled from Freddy‟s court. Richard is exasperated and turns on the forester or rather Ria, who is now accused of not portraying her character properly: as a forester she owes strict obedience to the king. King Freddy is angry with her and Richard with Ria too; she tries to plead with him to let her stay but it proves to be futile.
Though reminding one of Shakespeare‟s play, the birth scene in prison is much more elaborate, both within the play‟s plot and within the performance, as this is one decisive scene in Cornelissen‟s The Winter’s Tale in which Richard becomes even more jealous. Less now portrays the jailer who helps Ilona as Queen Rita with the birth of her baby daughter while Richard looks on in apparent jealousy: he does not like how Less and Ilona behave towards each other and also how Rita is helped by the jailer. As in Shakespeare‟s play, one of the characters, in this case the jailer, takes it on himself to try and convince the king of the queen‟s innocence with the help of the newborn princess.
Like Leontes however, King Freddy is convinced he is right and the jailer even has a hard time, like Paulina, getting to the king: the latter is convinced everyone is out to murder him and has surrounded himself with multiple guards and other safety mechanisms. Unlike Leontes however who just strictly refuses to believe or even acknowledge that the baby girl might be his own daughter, King Freddy takes recourse to a ruse. The jailer has presented the
baby in a buggy and when he turns to leave, Freddy orders him to leave baby and buggy behind. The jailer rejoices secretly but asks to make sure: is the King now willing to acknowledge this baby as his own, which Freddy answers in the affirmative. The jailer leaves and Freddy sees Ria as the forester getting ready to leave too. Once more he suggests something: Ria/ the forester can come back once in a while to visit his family if he pushes the buggy into the castle moat. Like Leontes‟ examination of Mamilius, Freddy has examined the baby and finds it horrifying and disgusting; he just wants to be rid of it. He hands Ria a small pouch with gold and makes sure she takes the buggy with her.
The following „Intermezzo‟ is a short scene in which the actors and not the characters are in the foreground. Although Less and Ilona congratulate Richard on his portrayal of King Freddy, he suspects foul play and questions them about the real meaning behind their words. In the end it seems as if he is satisfied of their honesty however.
The tribunal scene resembles that in Shakespeare‟s play. Before the trial starts, word gets out that Bobby, Rita and Freddy‟s son, is ill; he has not eaten for a week and it does not look too good. Proceedings have started nevertheless and, similar to Leontes, Freddy relies on an oracle as well. Two tokens, one red for guilty and one white for innocent, are in a bowl and Freddy will draw one while blindfolded. The outcome is the will of the gods. He does draw the white piece but while he ponders that this might mean Rita is innocent, it is announced that Bobby has succumbed to his illness. On hearing this Rita faints and cannot be revived: she too is dead. Freddy is in shock and full of remorse and decide to change his outlook on life for the better. This, however, does not seem to be the case for Richard, the actor portraying Freddy. Still in character, he picks up Rita‟s/ Ilona‟s body and dances with her around the stage. But even this action cannot make her alive again so he lets her body drop to the ground. This of course hurts quite a lot and Ilona cries out. Her knee pains her now and
Less and Richard argue about the responsibility each actor has for his or her fellow actor in such a case; Ria looks after Ilona. Finally, they all slip into the story again and narrate how King Freddy became sad and depressed and locked himself up in his castle, forever mourning his dead wife, laid to eternal rest in a coffin made from glass.
As Ilona, Richard and Less are getting hungry, they take a break from their story but when they start eating, they notice Ria sitting at the other side of the stage. They muse about what might have happened to the forester, thereby slipping into the story again. The forester wanted to save the child but he could not find a suitable place in the woods, so he decided to cross the sea into another country. He decides to swim over but gets caught in a storm and drowns whereas the baby is washed ashore safe and sound in, as it becomes apparent, Sicily. A fisherman, portrayed by Richard, finds the baby together with a purse of gold and a letter and adopts it as his own daughter. Less, now slipping out of character again, utters his opinion: it is not good that the forester left Bohemia as he is now dead and his wife and ten children are utterly alone. Ilona is the most vehement advocate against this view: the forester is a hero and that should be a great honour for the family. Richard interrupts them: they could argue for year and years and still not come to a suitable conclusion. Ilona agrees and states that sixteen years have now gone by and Kind Freddy still sits in his castle next to the coffin like Sleeping Beauty in her castle. Ilona clearly has a function here similar to Shakespeare‟s Time, announcing that everybody apart from one person has moved forward, grown older, thereby also signalling a change in mood from sombre and sad to festive and funny.
From this moment onwards there are not that many changes to the original storyline. Some differences result from changes within the first half of the play, such as the switch of Bohemia and Sicily and the change from shepherd to fisherman. Florizel and Perdita, aka Bruno and Vicky, are played by Less Walter and Ilona de Graf respectively, which leaves the
role of King Walter, Bruno‟s father, to Ria Pijpers. Richard Moll does not have a fixed character to play but rather assumes different personalities as they come up, like a guest at the masked ball the fishermen have organised. This masked ball stands in for the sheep shearing feast (in 4.4 in Shakespeare‟s play) and everybody is there celebrating. King Walter, who in this moment is still played by Less Walter, also is eager to attend the festivities but cannot find his mask nor his 18-year old son Bruno, whom he has not seen for days. He lets the matter rest for the moment, especially as Ria, Ilona and Richard half in, half out of character argue with him that he cannot turn his son into a mini-Walter, that Bruno has to make his own mistakes. They now fully turn their attention to the masked ball and Vicky is asked to sing by two guests (played by Ria and Richard); she decides on “Wenn bei Capri die rote Sonne im Meer versinkt” (a famous German song from the 40s and 50s and still quite popular today in pop music). Afterwards Ria and Richard go offstage and Less, now masked as Bruno, walks with Vicky across the stage: he admits that he is in love with her and invites her for a tour on his motorbike. In the meantime King Walter, as played by Ria, has also arrived at the ball. When a party game reveals to all that Bruno loves Vicky and wants to marry her without his father‟s consent, there is a direct reference to a pre-determined storyline the actors adhere to: it is possible that they refer to Shakespeare when Less explains „well, the story goes like this‟. As in the original The Winter’s Tale, Bruno and Vicky flee the country to able to stay together and escape King Walter‟s anger; the fisherman goes to King Walter‟s castle to inform him about how he found Vicky as a baby and has raised her as his own child. Once King Walter finds out who she is through the letter the forester wrote, he is full of remorse and makes haste to go after Vicky and Bruno to reconcile himself with them. In Bohemia, Vicky and Bruno have arrived at King Freddy‟s castle and like Shakespeare‟s Leontes the king is smitten with this lovely girl who so much resembles his dead wife. He rejoices even more once King
Walter has arrived too and it is revealed that Vicky is in fact his daughter. Freddy is sad however despite his joy: he would have liked his wife Rita to witness this happy event. Unlike in Shakespeare‟s The Winter’s Tale where Hermione miraculously comes to life once again, Rita, who is now that Ilona plays Vicky symbolised by a dress inside the glass coffin, stays dead. This is as much a necessity caused by the doubling of Vicky and Rita as well as a definite twist on the story as we know it from Shakespeare. As Less hands the dress to Vicky and thereby lets Rita disappear for good, Freddy gets frantic: he needs to find her. Reminding one of the force of his jealousy earlier in the play, he is now bent on finding her, which even causes Richard to fall out of his role again by trying to make Ilona play Rita and not Vicky any longer. She does not agree and the two actors chase each other across the stage but finally kiss each other: Richard is triumphant and Less, Ilona and Ria good-heartedly laugh about it. This The Winter’s Tale certainly also ends on a happy note.
With its double layer of storytelling, this is probably the most sophisticated of Cornelissen‟s three plays but maybe, like his Henry V, it might also be one of the more accessible plays for children of that age. Whereas Henry V is more concerned with what happens in the playground when children quarrel, this The Winter’s Tale might ring a bell with all those who have seen their parents argue over something: sometimes the reasons for an argument are as nonsensical as King Freddy‟s jealousy. In the same way Bruno and Rita‟s behaviour when faced with King Walter can appeal to young teenagers who often rebel against their parents. Seen from this angle, this play can be strangely soothing as it shows that children, no matter what might happen, do not lose their parents‟ love for good: this is symbolised by Walter‟s reconciliation with his son Bruno as well as by Freddy‟s joy at seeing his daughter Vicky alive and well. It might not include the easiest of themes to deal with in a
young person‟s life, such as death, but it certainly shows that there is a life afterwards when