People's Light and Theatre goes all out with elaborate 'The Winter's Tale'

Much more than Shakespeare will greet audiences at People's Light and Theatre Company when they arrive to see

The Winter's Tale

. Amid a small carnival ritual that begins outdoors, a symbolic Witch of Winter will be paraded, buried, and, at the end of the show, set on fire.

The Winter's Tale, in previews until Saturday's opening, is one of the more elaborate productions in the company's history, and one that proudly behaves like a loose cannon.

"We've come to warm your hearts," assures a surly Dickensian actor in a tone of voice that suggests a challenge as much as a greeting.

Teen urchins swarm the stage, part of a 22-member cast whose look rides the fine line between vagabond and vagrant, with a sense of purpose recalling modern "eco-warriors" - a mixture of garb suggesting Victorian grunge but with makeup (white foreheads, dark vertical streaks) inspired by African war paint.

Music is an unusually aggressive presence, with extended interludes played on fiddle, accordion, and drums (led by noted violinist Jay Ansill), sometimes with actors singing through a megaphone. Composer M.J. McCarthy counts gravel-voiced songwriter Tom Waits, avant-garde jazz artist Captain Beefheart, and shock rocker Screamin' Jay Hawkins among the influences.

"These are figures that have a romance about them," he says without a hint of irony.

If the production aims to bring greater coherence to what is often called Shakespeare's glorious mess, it has a far-flung way of doing so. That's because director Guy Hollands, visiting from the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland, makes no apologies for the inconsistencies in the play's tale of King Leontes, who destroys his family over unmotivated jealousy but, 16 penitent years later, witnesses a statue of his supposedly dead wife coming to life.

"No other playwright would dare to mix genres like this," Hollands says. "Shakespeare shuttles between them quickly, and with such courage."

The production has two stories unfolding simultaneously - The Winter's Tale itself and the ragtag theater group performing it in a variety of styles, from vaudeville to Olivier, and with costumes combining Elizabethan collars with jaunty derby hats.

"The idea is that they're doing the best they can with cobbled-together sets, costumes from a trunk, and maybe from another play they do. They don't worry about anachronisms," Hollands says. "I've never done a show with so much makeup. And there will be more. I'd like it to be bolder."

Paradoxically, the expense required to look this scruffy is considerable. Evolving out of a series of workshops Hollands began conducting at People's Light in 2011, the production required the theater to be reconfigured with a thrust stage and a set whose rear walls open to reveal even stranger, more magical worlds, but at a cost of $25,000 - twice the typical budget.

With so many levels and options, the actors keep busy. "It gives everybody so much to think about that they stop acting," says People's Light artistic director Abigail Adams.

Self-conscious formality has killed many Shakespeare performances over the years. Hollands' rehearsal methods - intensive readings and discussions followed by do-it-yourself blocking - encouraged actors to develop a personal relationship with Shakespeare's language.

"I've never had a director take care of me so much," says Nancy McNulty, who plays Hermione, Leontes' wronged wife, "or be so hands-off."

Such added responsibility - plus the fact that the production doesn't exist at any fixed point in time - is strangely liberating.

"That frees up the performance to be all about the language," she says.

"And it emphatically opens the door to talking with the audience," says Christopher Patrick Mullen, who plays Leontes. "I have a lot of obvious asides with the audience. I feel like I have a permission slip to discuss something with them."

"In Shakespeare, the audience is always the final character," McNulty says.

One of the production's early, uninvited characters was the Transportation Security Administration at Philadelphia International Airport. In June, Hollands arrived to start work on this, his U.S. directing debut, but was immediately sent back to Scotland for lack of the right visa.

In Malvern, they feared he'd quit. And, indeed, "it was one of the worst days of my life," he says. "But I was so keen to do this. And we'd done so much work already."

Already you can sense the separation anxiety attendant to creating something so singular and ephemeral: After March 3, this Winter's Tale will disappear like spring snow.

"The thought had crossed my mind to get somebody from the Dublin Theatre Festival to see it," says composer McCarthy, who is from Ireland.

"The production is so huge," Hollands says. "But it would be amazing."