There is not a gimmick to be found in the WorkShop Theater Company’s smart, engaging, and emotionally rewarding production of Shakespeare’s late romance and so-called “problem play,” The Winter’s Tale. Instead, director Ryan Lee and the outstanding company have taken to heart the bard’s own admonition, used in a different context in Hamlet, that “the play’s the thing.”

It just goes to show you what can happen when all involved trust the playwright. They imbue their collective work with all eyes on the singular goal of painting pictures through the magic of language rather than filling the stage with visual ruffles and flourishes of the sort we’ve been seeing of late.