If you’ve been hanging around the Wilna Thomas building on Camosun’s Lansdowne campus, you might have noticed actors and actresses rehearsing a play nearby. Director Barbara Poggemiller is working on Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale “by the huge beautiful oak trees” at Lansdowne for the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival.
Some critics regard The Winter’s Tale as one of Shakespeare’s more problematic plays because the first half is “a terrible tragedy,” according to Poggemiller, and the second half is a comedy, but Poggemiller says she loves it.
“The last four plays of Shakespeare are all very fantastical in a sense,” she says. “This is one of his last plays that he wrote; the last four plays all have some element of fantasy, of magic, of spiritual magic to bring a world together, ultimately, for forgiveness, and that’s why I love the play. I love the play that everyone doesn’t end up dead on the floor.”
Poggemiller says the play is one of timeless truths, heartbreak, and comedy. In The Winter’s Tale, the first half is a tragedy, then main character Leontes “recognizes what he’s done, and is willing to repent and grieve for as long as it takes,” says Poggemiller.
The second half is a comedy, which brings us back to the point about some critics finding it problematic. Not Poggemiller.
“To me, that’s not a problem; it’s magical,” she says. “And it also deals with a lot of reality, like the power of jealousy. Our world is dealing with that all the time in tragic ways, right? So it’s not an old theme. It’s very relevant in that sense.”
As someone who has been in the business almost 40 years as both a director and an actress, Poggemiller says that being involved in a play comes down to understanding the motives and emotions of the characters. Through that, she says, the audience will understand.
“Our process is really to honour and discover what the play is. And then to tell the story in the most dynamic way we can, the most truthful and dynamic way we can.”
Poggemiller says that by opening night, she will have put in about 200 hours of preparation and rehearsals.
“You find a way to actually get to the heart of what’s being said,” she says. “The more we understand it, the more the actors understand it, the more the audience will understand it, because the intentions will be clear and strong.”
Poggemiller says she has a very hands-on approach to her work and has a hard time feeling like her job is ever truly done, even on opening night.
“I have a hard time just sitting and watching,” she says, “unless I’m finally at the place where the actors are there doing what they’re doing. If we’re working on a scene I definitely feel more connected being up in the space and talking with actors, working it through, and then stepping back. Of course, you have to let them go for it, let them run it.”
Poggemiller—who has been working with her cast outside Wilna Thomas since May—says she still gets anxious on opening night, even after all these years.
“You just don’t take it for granted,” Poggemiller says of working on a Shakespeare play. “You never feel like, ‘Oh, I got this.’ What you want more than anything is for the audience to respond in a positive way.”
Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival
July 7 to 30
$24-$33 (children under 12 free; half-price tickets available for some events)
Camosun College Lansdowne campus
vicshakespeare.com