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Performance 6/21/25 – Portland Stage TFK

I enjoyed the clever use of ancient language and concepts in the same room with modern stupid phone culture. I’m a sucker for puppets, medieval billboards, and the simple use of the flashlight effect. I enjoyed this show even more after looking up the Tennyson poem on Wikipedia, and having those, oh, I get it, moments, like revisiting that old Monty Python sketch and laughing a little harder.

Review Submitted on 6/21/25 by Linda, PF25 Independent Review Team

The Lady of Shallot is a modern retelling of the epic Tennyson poem, wherein the Lady remains in her tower, relating to others through her social channels and ‘influencing’. The modernization of the story takes on a metaphorical bent, encouraging us to consider the distance we create with our phones, the ‘towers’ we put ourselves in, and the ‘flood’ we are all trying to ignore.

I admittedly did not know much about the Tennyson work, and the show could have used a little more of a primer as far as the source work being satirized, but the narrative development around a truth-telling companion to our Lady eventually helps fill in the blanks. I’d elaborate here, but the reveal of this new character is a such a well-delivered moment of the show that I’ll leave it to your imagination.

There’s lots of humor, with some of the best revolving around the Lady’s responses to her followers and dating apps (wherein we learn what the medieval equivalent of holding a fish in your dating profile pics might be). And the reveal of her savior, Lancelot, is one of the best sight gags you will see at fringe this year. The props and set all have a great simplicity and cleverness around execution that’s engaging, creating a well-realized world for the Lady to be stuck in. I missed some of the elements of performance because of the way the Lady was sleeping the floor – it’s so frustrating to hear people in the front row laughing at a joke you can’t see, amiright? But the elaborate desk/boat and the whimsy of the technical execution overall was satisfying and fun to watch. The end of the show definitely had me on wikipedia, trying to understand how the story wraps up, so I might recommend learning a little about the original poem before seeing this performance. But there are plenty of laughs and the message here, about coming down from your tower and experiencing the world, no matter the cost, strikes me a pretty relevant one right now. 

Review Submitted on 6/22/25 by Allen Baldwin, PF25 Independent Review Team