THEATER REVIEW : ‘Winter’s Tale’ Blends Tragedy With Comedy : The Shakespeare drama is actually two plays, with the action switching direction after Act 1.

Local theater fans have a rare opportunity to see one of Shakespeare’s more obscure works, “The Winter’s Tale,” in a typically fine California Shakespeare Company production.

Two plays in one, “The Winter’s Tale” begins as a tragedy, swinging into a romantic comedy at the halfway point. The first “play” tells of Leontes, king of Sicilia. A jealous man, he has reason to believe that his wife Hermione has taken up with his old friend Polixenes, King of Bohemia, and that Polixenes is planning to kill him. Leontes jails his wife, who gives birth to a daughter in prison. Their son, already sickly, dies of grief.

Wrongly believing the infant to be Polixenes’, he orders her killed. That doesn’t happen, and Act II follows the adventures of the baby--Perdita--now 16 years old and ready for romance. She falls in love with Florizel, son of Polixenes, and the two, unaware of the events of Act I, travel back to Sicilia and Leontes’ court, where (to coin a phrase), all’s well that ends well.

Shakespeare--who based much of the play on “Pandosto, The Triumph of Time,” a 1588 novel by English writer Robert Greene--makes the whole plot somewhat believable, while filling it with interesting characters, such as the pickpocket Autolycus, entirely his own invention. There’s plenty of low comedy as well as romance in the second half, and “The Winter’s Tale” features the enactment of what may be Shakespeare’s most famous (and certainly his funniest) stage direction: “Exit, pursued by a bear.”

California Shakespeare Company artistic director William Fisher has once again assembled a fine, large cast, bringing several new faces to the local stage in addition to several longtime favorites. Darren Raleigh plays Leontes, with Christine Failla as Hermione, David Steel as their ill-fated son, and Virginia Worley as Perdita.

Kelly Vincent co-stars as Polixenes, with Vincent Wares as his crafty associate Camillo, and Aaron Craig as dashing prince Florizel. Joshua Farrell plays Antigonus, who takes sympathy on infant Perdita, and Jill Macy is his loudmouth, busybody of a wife, Paulina.

Nathan Clark shines as the pickpocket Autolycus, and Jules Mandel is very funny as both the shepherd who adopts Perdita and (in a three-piece more-or-less modern business suit) the personification of Time, who gives a brief speech in which 16 years pass like a minute.

(Craig appears again, in what may be the world’s worst wig, as the shepherd’s oafish son).

As in all California Shakespeare Company productions, there’s virtually no scenery, though costumes are lavish. The lack of a stage set doesn’t detract; rather, it makes concentration on the dialogue and action even easier than it otherwise might be.

Details

* WHAT: “The Winter’s Tale.”

* WHEN: Friday and Saturday evenings at 8; Sunday afternoons at 3, through March 13.

* WHERE: California Shakespeare Company Theater, 6685 Princeton Ave., Moorpark.

* COST: $12 general admission; $10 for students and seniors.

* FYI: For reservations or further information, call 498-3354 or 373-9243.