Hamish Linklater and Jesse Tyler Ferguson photo by Joan Marcus

It’s Summer, and Shakespeare is in the Park and tickets are free and New Yorkers are happy. If you are fortunate enough to get a ticket, you’ll find the seats are improved, the heightened sound system saves every Shakespearean syllable from going unheard and five acts, reduced to two, are easier on the tush. Everybody who has not eaten and drunk before the show can carry his or her eats and drink to sustain them while the show is going on. The eager, smiling, helpful crew give easy directions to your seats in the vast arc which swings around the huge, circular stage, the fading twilight is filled with birds winging nestward and planes winging wherever. Happy, expectant, the audience, already feeling virtuous for being in attendance at a Shakespearean event, the pinnacle of theatrical endeavor, radiates a warm, welcoming mood. The play begins.

Director Michael Greif establishes the court of the King of Sicilia through Dontee Kiehn’s choreographed swirls of swiftly flying pennants, briskly encircling the enormous stage, gay, lively, imaginative. And then Greif gets down to cases. Because he knows and we who are acquainted with The Winter’s Tale also know that this is far from a happy court. King Leontes (Ruben Santiago-Hudson) has so enveloped himself in the throes of jealousy that he can’t stand his dearest friend, Polixenes, King of Bohemia (Jesse L. Martin), and cringes at the sight of his dear, dear pregnant wife, Queen Hermione (Linda Emond). He knows the child is not his. He knows they conspire against him. He’s nuts, but we don’t know why; Shakespeare just gives us this from his borrowings from other sources, as the facts. It’s up to us to deal with his fixation. Which means that the director and the actors have their work cut out for them. The Winter’s Tale is notorious for being a tragedy during its first three acts and a pastoral fantastical comedy for the last two, with the bridging left to the director and the theatrical company. Since its Shakespeare, it’s generally been treated with long standing deference. That it is not a good play in substance, construction or insights is rarely mentioned. That it takes actors and direction of surpassing abilities and experience to combat the play’s faults in order to construct a coherence the author never supplies makes most productions of the play falter or outright fail. This production was a goner before the play went into rehearsal.

To start with, take the kings, Leontes and Polixenes. Competent is not, unfortunately, enough. There isn’t a kingly bone about them. They’re a pair of successful—meaning long years of employment -- television actors having a summer fling. They haven‘t a clue or a background which enables them to invest these Shakespearean cardboard cut outs with complexities of character. They give what they’ve got, direct. Director Greif know this, lets them do what they know best, work to the word and the moment. Since there is not a single Shakespearean quote of note in The Winter’s Tale except for the most fantastical stage direction in the whole business (“Exit, pursued by a bear”) the actor has to supply everything. Few actors can. Santiago-Hudson has to try; he has a total volte face to accomplish in the latter portion of the play. He has also to contend with Shakespeare’s magical ending. Well, we all have to contend with that but he’s the one trapped in Shakespeare’s toils... Lost cause.

Not everyone is so bereft. Byron Jennings is fine as Camillo as is Gerry Bamman as Antigonus, the one pursued by the bear. And Marianne Jean-Baptiste positively shines in this company. Linda Emonds makes a very sympathetic Queen Hermione. Francois Battiste as Prince Florizel needs ten years more work. Heather Lind as Perdita is a gorgeous absurdity. And the clowns… Well, no American seems to be able to be a Shakespearean clown, dunno why. (I thought it was Shakespeare’s fault until I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company at work. Hilarious.) Mark Wendland’s scenic design is bizarre. Clint Ramos’s costumes are all over the place from right to wrong, from lovely to inappropriate. And hurrah for Acme Sound Partners. Still, nothing can keep you from quailing at the end of the play. Entirely Shakespeare’s doing. Joseph Papp’s Midsummer’s Dream is indeed a Winter’s Tale.

Delacorte Theater, Central Park near 79^th Street. Free. In repertory with The Merchant of Venice. Schedule varies.