By William Shakespeare. Directed by Anita Rochon. A Studio 58 production. At Studio 58 on Wednesday, November 25. Continues until December 13

I didn’t know that projectile crying was possible, but I think I moistened the necks of the people in front of me.

William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is about regret and forgiveness. Leontes, King of Sicilia, suspects his pregnant wife, Hermione, of being unfaithful with his friend Polixenes, King of Bohemia. Hermione gives birth to a daughter and Leontes casts the child into the wilderness. Because of the strife between his parents, the royal couple’s young son Mamillius dies, and when Leontes puts her on trial Hermione collapses and appears to expire as well. When the Delphic oracle declares Hermione innocent, Leontes realizes his mistake, but it’s too late. The play then fast-forwards 16 years. The daughter, Perdita, has been raised by shepherds, and has fallen in love with Polixenes’s son Florizel. In the climax, Paulina, a lady of the Sicilian court, reveals what she claims is a statue of Hermione, and that statue magically comes to life.

What makes this complicated fairy tale almost impossible to fully realize is that Leontes goes nuts right off the top. Despite its strengths elsewhere, director Anita Rochon’s interpretation doesn’t make these tricky opening scenes emotionally credible. Although he speaks the text fluently, professional actor Mike Wasko doesn’t rip open the agony beneath Leontes’s fury. And when the king goes insane, his courtiers should be soiling their tights. Here, they’re just worried.

Emotionally, the production comes into its own at Hermione’s trial. When Melissa Dionisio’s Hermione enters from her filthy prison, her painful walk reminds us that she has just given birth, and this play’s compassion for abused innocence comes tumbling to the fore. Dionisio delivers Hermione’s self-defence like the star she should soon become, with raw power and impressive simplicity.

Director Rochon is also a talent to watch. One of the key dynamics of the play is the contrast between Sicilia and Bohemia. The dour greys and blacks by costumer Marina Szijarto turn Sicilia into the Soviet Union of the late ’50s, and the Balkan songs employed by musical director Alison Jenkins contribute forceful melancholy. In Christopher David Gauthier’s clever set, Bohemia becomes a love-in, in a park. Rochon choreographs fantastically crisp transitions between the scenes and, in a witty touch, she makes the messengers sent to the oracle into cosmonauts.

Under Rochon’s direction, everybody on-stage makes sense of what they’re saying, which is no mean feat. Gui Fontanezzi brings out all of the compassion and intelligence in Leontes’s adviser Camillo, and Kirsty Provan confidently inhabits Paulina’s mature authority.

Always a persuasive actor, Wasko comes into his full power in the later scenes. When Leontes realizes that Hermione is still alive, it was Wasko’s grief and relief that made tears spring from my eyes. Who hasn’t wished they could undo the pain they’ve caused?