The Winter's Tale, a play by William Shakespeare at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Directed by Sam Mendes, starring Simon Russell Beale, Rebecca Hall, Morven Christie, Sinead Cusack, Robert Easton, and Ethan Hawke. The Winter's Tale is my favorite Shakespeare play, in fact it's my favorite play of all. While it's regularly produced in England, the play is a genuine rarity in the US, even in New York, so a first class production of it is not to be missed. The Bridge Project's performance of the Winter's Tale is one of the best I've seen. Superbly directed by Sam Mendes, it has outstanding performances by Rebecca Hall, shattering as Hermione, Sinead Cusack, a sovereign Paulina, and a star turn by Ethan Hawke as the clown Autolycus, singing, dancing, and mugging his way into our hearts and into theater history. Every other Winter's Tale I've seen has used the usual British theatre cliche of portraying Autolycus as a Cockney caricature. But at last, here is a three dimensional Autolycus of substance, humor, and brilliance. I've seen Paulinas by the likes of Eileen Atkins and Margaret Tyzack, but none have been quite as hauntingly powerful as Cusack. Simon Russell Beale is an idiocyncratic Leontes, not so much raging as usual, but out of sorts, irritated, put upon. He starts out lost, but his performance builds from the powerful trial scene to the great last act, staged better than I've ever seen it. Then there is the key Second Act, the pastoral act, in Bohemia. Mendes has cast the British as Sycillians, and the Americans as Bohemians, which works splendidly. The Western warmth of the pastoral celebration, anchored by the lovely dewey Perdita of Morven Christie, is unforgettable. A beautiful Winter's Tale to savor. Don't miss this! Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Grade A.