In Act IV, scene i of William Shakespeare’s Pericles, Dionyza, the wife of Cleon and foster mother of Pericles’s daughter Marina hires a man named Leonine to murder Marina. Leonine intends to carry out the murder as he and Marina are walking along the shores of Tarsus, but just as he is preparing to kill her, Leonine is driven off by pirates who also kidnap Marina. This scene is emblematic of the play as whole, capturing the sudden and absurd reversals of fortune that occur repeatedly throughout the play. When staging this scene, a director should classic elements of drama to highlight the comedic elements of Pericles.
In the first part of the scene, Dionyza should be portrayed as grotesquely evil while Leonine should be played somewhat ineptly. Together, the two charcters should form a duo similar to that of Yzma and Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove. When Marina enters the scene, Leonine should be instantly smitten with her, delivering his line, “But yet she is a godly creature” (9) in an awestruck tone. Dionyza’s response, “The fitter, then, the gods should have her" (10) should be quick and sharp with an impatient tone. The contrast between Leonine and Dionyza’s tone will create humor by mixing Dionyza’s scheming depravity with Leonine’s ineptitude.
Unlike Dionyza and Leonine, Marina should be played innocent and sweet with a great deal of naivete. When she dismisses Dionyza’s offer to have Leonine walk with her, her statement “I’ll not bereave you of your servant” (32), should be filled with genuine concern for Dionyza. Marina’s kindness juxtaposed with Dionyza’s heartlessness with create tension as the audience worries that the evil Dionyza will succeed in having Marina killed. This tension will ultimately be broken when Marina is taken by the pirates. Such a sudden and unexpected breaking of the tension will be very funny to the audience.
Finally, dramatic irony can be used to great effect in this scene. Although the pirates enter and kidnap Marina only after Leonine seizes her, the pirate’s ship should be shown in the background dispatching a rowboat that then lands on the shore. This way, the audience will see the pirates approaching the front of the stage, but Marina and Leonine will remain oblivious. The pirates should also speak loudly and with ridiculous accents. They may even sound like parrots trying to mimic human speech or like the witches in the opening of Macbeth. This will make it seem as if Marina and Leonine should have been able to tell they were about to be attacked, and it will make the pirates look goofy. The goofiness of the pirates will make the fact that Leonine flees while Marina is being kidnapped hilarious. When Leonine reenters the scene to deliver his monologue, he should pause between saying “the great pirate Valdes,” and “And they have seized Marina” (100-101). The first part of this line should be delivered with awe and the second part of this line should be delivered with surprise and panic. This will make the audience laugh by making it seem as if Leonine was so impressed by Valdes’s pirates that he temporarily forgot about Marina.
By setting Dionyza and Leonine up as comedic foils, creating and breaking tension with Marina’s impending death and kidnapping, and employing dramatic irony, a director can ensure that Act IV, scene I of Pericles highlights the overall absurdity of the play and its quick changes of fortune.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, vol V. Ed. David Bevington. Bantam Books 1988.
Shakespeare, William. Pericles from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, vol V. Ed. David Bevington. Bantam Books 1988.
The Emperor’s New Groove. Directed by Mark Dindal, performances by David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, and Patrick Warburton, Walt Disney Pictures, 2000.