Art Gallery Settings

Once I decided to direct this play, I immediately realized that I needed to find a way to modernize the setting, incorporate Hermione’s statue into the landscape of Sicilia, and allow Perdita all of her flora without actually having tons of plants around. I knew that I did not want to go so far as to have the Sicilians in their power suits and the Bohemians in overalls to communicate the two different settings. Upon reading Bate’s Introduction in the RSC script, one line stood out to me: “When she [Paulina] finally softens and lets him into her art gallery, surely we, too, need to let go of our reason and moral judgment” (Bate xviii). The script only says that Paulina steals away to a removed hut; this was a ground-breaking concept for me. From there, all of the pieces started to fall into place.

Since we really only see Sicilia from the court and Bohemia from the farm, I decided to do away with the suggested scene settings such as “a room in Leontes’ court”, “outside Leontes’ court”, “the coast of Bohemia”, and “the countryside” because I knew that there was no way to communicate so many different settings in one space, nor did I want to fuss around with making and moving around a bunch of set pieces. I decided to have the two kingdoms be art galleries.

In order to justify the statue of Hermione, Sicilia will be a sculpture gallery, with Paulina as curator. The Bohemian “sheep-shearing festival” will be the opening reception for Perdita’s collection of floral paintings.

I recalled a visit to the Met last spring (a lovely side trip while in NY to see the Patrick Stewart Macbeth); the human body art (sculpture and armor) felt awe-inspiring, austere, and got my blood pumping. Most of the surviving art of this genre came from civilizations that were more competitive, war-like, and fearsome—like Leontes. The paintings of sweeping landscapes, still-lifes, and the household finery with intricate floral patterns made me feel more peaceful and as if I needed to use more of my intellect to understand what was at work in that art—like Polixenes.