The Winter's Tale (22 page)

Camillo wishes to return to Sicilia, but Polixenes asks him not to, a conversation that evokes that of Polixenes and Leontes at the beginning of the play, one of several such echoes. Polixenes cannot bear to hear Sicilia mentioned as it reminds him of the past's tragic events.
Their conversation turns to Prince Florizel, who has recently been neglecting his “princely exercises.” They have heard that he spends his time at the home of a Shepherd “who hath a daughter of most rare note.” Polixenes observes that she must be the “angle” (hook) that “plucks” Florizel to the cottage. He decides that they will go in disguise to question the Shepherd.

Autolycus' song of the spring contrasts with the sad “winter's tale” told by Mamillius in Act 2 Scene 1. It reinforces the rural setting of Bohemia, as well as the theme of regeneration. The sexual innuendo generates comedy and illustrates Autolycus' robust character. Autolycus tells us that he used to be in service of Florizel, but that he now makes his living as a petty thief and con man. He sees the Clown approaching and decides to set a “springe” (trap) for him. The Clown is distracted, trying to remember what he has been sent to buy for the “sheep-shearing feast.” Autolycus lies on the ground, groaning and asking for help. He tells the Clown that he has been robbed and that his attackers left him in the “detestable” rags that he is wearing. Concerned, the Clown helps Autolycus up and, as he does so, Autolycus picks his pocket. Ironically, the Clown offers Autolycus money, which he refuses. The Clown asks who attacked him, and with further comic irony, Autolycus describes himself. After the Clown has left, he vows to attend the sheep-shearing and leaves, singing once more.

Lines 1–62:
Florizel, dressed as a shepherd and calling himself “Doricles,” compliments Perdita on her costume for the festival. She comments on their reversed roles, raising the issue of status: he has “obscured” his status with “a swain's wearing,” and she, a “lowly maid” is “Most goddess-like pranked up,” creating dramatic irony as we are aware of her true status. This change in costume establishes the use of disguises throughout the scene, generating comedy and reinforcing the motif of false appearance. Florizel reassures Perdita
that his intentions toward her are honorable: his “lusts” do not “Burn hotter” than his “faith.” They are interrupted by the arrival of the guests, including Polixenes and Camillo in disguise.

Lines 63–240:
Urged by the Shepherd, Perdita welcomes the guests to the sheep-shearing. She distributes flowers to everyone, including the “winter” flowers of “rosemary and rue” to Polixenes and Camillo. She discusses cross-pollinating flowers and the marrying of “A gentler scion to the wildest stock” with Polixenes, reflecting the apparent circumstances in her relationship with Florizel. Perdita and Florizel move aside. Polixenes comments on Perdita's beauty to Camillo and observes that she seems to be “Too noble for this place.” The Clown, Mopsa, and Dorcas begin the dance and, as they watch, Polixenes questions the Shepherd about the “fair swain” who is courting his daughter. The Shepherd informs him that Doricles owns rich grazing land. A servant brings news that there is a “pedlar at the door” and Autolycus is shown in, disguised.

Lines 241–344:
Autolycus sings an enticing song about his wares, and a comic, bawdy exchange ensues among Mopsa, Dorcas, Autolycus, and the Clown, who fails to recognize Autolycus as the man who “cozened” him. Mopsa and Dorcas join Autolycus in song and the Clown leads them away, offering to buy gifts for both girls.

Lines 345–506:
Further entertainment arrives and, as they watch, Polixenes tells Camillo that it is “time to part” Florizel and Perdita. He speaks to Florizel, pretending not to recognize him. Florizel, not recognizing his father, takes Perdita's hand and asks Polixenes to be “witness” to what he is about to say. He makes a public declaration of his love for Perdita. The Shepherd declares that he gives his daughter to Florizel and will “make / Her portion equal to his.” As Florizel urges the Shepherd to make their betrothal formal, Polixenes interrupts, asking if Florizel's father knows and suggests that Florizel is wrong not to inform him. Polixenes reveals his true identity, furious with Florizel for attempting to contract a marriage with “a sheep-hook.” He accuses the Shepherd of treachery, the punishment for which is execution, and threatens to have Perdita's beauty “scratched with briers.” He forbids Florizel to have any more to do
with Perdita, under threat of disinheritance. Polixenes leaves. The Shepherd also vents his anger at the couple before storming out.

Lines 507–667:
Florizel guesses Camillo's true identity. Camillo advises him to avoid Polixenes until he has calmed down. Florizel reassures Perdita and declares that he will marry her, even if it means giving up the succession to the throne. He announces his intention to leave Bohemia. Camillo suggests that they go to Sicilia where Florizel can introduce Perdita as his princess and pretend that he has come in reconciliation from Polixenes. Florizel agrees, and Camillo promises to provide him with clothes and attendants. As they draw aside to discuss matters, Autolycus returns.

Lines 668–744:
Autolycus is congratulating himself on the number of purses that he has stolen at the shearing. Camillo, Perdita, and Florizel see him and ask him to exchange clothes with Florizel, which he does. Camillo advises Perdita to “disliken / The truth of your own seeming,” reminding us that, ironically, her true identity has already been concealed once. Camillo's aside reveals that he intends to tell Polixenes of the lovers' destination, forcing the king to sail to Sicilia, taking Camillo with him. He leaves, as Florizel and Perdita head for the coast.

Lines 745–906:
As Autolycus contemplates what he has just witnessed, the Shepherd and the Clown approach. Autolycus stands aside to listen. The Clown urges his father to tell the king that Perdita is “a changeling,” not of his “flesh and blood,” and that therefore he should not be punished for her actions. As they leave for the palace they are stopped by Autolycus, whom they mistake for a “courtier.” Autolycus tells them that Polixenes has boarded a ship and offers to direct them to it. The Shepherd gives him gold in return and they set out, Autolycus revealing aside his intention to do good by his old master, Florizel—and to win some gold for himself by doing so.

Lines 1–151:
In Sicilia, Cleomenes assures Leontes that he has grieved long enough. Leontes will not forgive himself. He is supported
by Paulina who, outspoken as ever, reminds him that he “killed” a woman of “unparalleled” goodness. Throughout the scene she continues to remind him of his wife and children. The Lords urge Leontes to marry again, concerned that Sicilia should have an heir, but Paulina reminds them that Apollo has decreed that “King Leontes shall not have an heir / Till his lost child be found.” She urges Leontes not to marry again, and he agrees not to without Paulina's “free leave.” A servant brings the news that Florizel and his princess have asked to see Leontes. Aware of the absence of state formality surrounding the visit, Leontes wonders whether Florizel has come there out of “need and accident.” He sends Cleomenes to fetch them.

Lines 152–278:
Leontes greets Florizel, commenting on his likeness to Polixenes. He praises Perdita's beauty and reflects sadly on his own lost children. Florizel presents greetings from Polixenes, pretending that “infirmity” prevents his father from coming in person. As Leontes expresses his pleasure at seeing them, a Lord interrupts with a message from Polixenes, revealing the truth about the couple's flight from Bohemia and demanding that Leontes arrest Florizel. The Lord reports that Polixenes is in Sicilia, accompanied by the Shepherd and the Clown, whom he is questioning. Camillo is also with them, and Florizel realizes that he has been betrayed. Perdita reveals that they are not yet married and they admit that Perdita is not a princess. Leontes expresses sympathy and agrees to try to help them win over Polixenes.

We learn about the revelation of Perdita's true identity and the reunion of Leontes and Polixenes and Camillo through the conversation of Autolycus and some Gentlemen, a device that suggests that, though these are wonderful events, there is a greater dnouement still to be witnessed onstage. A Third Gentleman reports that the entire party has gone to Paulina's, at Perdita's request, to see a statue of Hermione, and they leave Autolycus to join the party assembling there. Autolycus meets the Shepherd and the Clown who revel in their elevation in rank, bestowed upon them for their kindness in
raising Perdita. Autolycus apologizes for his past misdemeanors and they promise to tell the prince that he is “as honest a true fellow as is any in Bohemia.”

Paulina reveals the statue of Hermione and Leontes is overcome by its likeness to his wife. He comments that the statue shows Hermione as older than she was, and Paulina explains that the “carver's excellence” has portrayed her as she would be now. Leontes wistfully compares the cold statue to the “warm life” of Hermione. Perdita kneels and reaches out to touch the statue, but Paulina stops her. Camillo, Polixenes, and even Paulina try to comfort Leontes, who is overcome, but he will not allow Paulina to cover Hermione again. As everyone comments on how lifelike the statue is, Paulina claims that she can make it move and speak. Leontes commands her to do so and Paulina pronounces a “spell” to music. In a visual affirmation of the regeneration that characterizes the latter half of the play, Hermione steps down from the plinth, although whether this is an act of magic or the revelation that she has been alive all this time is not certain. Leontes and Hermione embrace, and Perdita kneels again before her mother. Hermione blesses her daughter. Leontes declares that Paulina and Camillo will marry and, despite the tragic deaths of Antigonus and Mamillius, the play ends in unity and celebration.

The best way to understand a Shakespeare play is to see it or ideally to participate in it. By examining a range of productions, we may gain a sense of the extraordinary variety of approaches and interpretations that are possible—a variety that gives Shakespeare his unique capacity to be reinvented and made “our contemporary” four centuries after his death.

We begin with a brief overview of the play's theatrical and cinematic life, offering historical perspectives on how it has been performed. We then analyze in more detail a series of productions staged over the last half-century by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The sense of dialogue between productions that can only occur when a company is dedicated to the revival and investigation of the Shakespeare canon over a long period, together with the uniquely comprehensive archival resource of promptbooks, program notes, reviews, and interviews held on behalf of the RSC at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, allows an “RSC stage history” to become a crucible in which the chemistry of the play can be explored.

Finally, we go to the horse's mouth. Modern theater is dominated by the figure of the director, who must hold together the whole play, whereas the actor must concentrate on his or her part. The director's viewpoint is therefore especially valuable. Shakespeare's plasticity is wonderfully revealed when we hear directors of highly successful productions answering the same questions in very different ways.

The Winter's Tale
was one of four plays described by Simon Forman, Elizabethan quack doctor and astrologer, in his commonplace book. Forman saw it at the Globe on Wednesday, May 15, 1611, and wrote a rough outline of the plot, although he failed to mention either the bear or Hermione's statue coming back to life. He was especially impressed by Autolycus, drawing the moral, “Beware of trusting feigned beggars or fawning fellows.”
¹
Richard Burbage, leading tragedian with the King's Men, probably played Leontes, and Robert Armin, the company's scholarly comedian, renowned for his wit and his singing, would have been Autolycus. The play must have been popular since there are recorded performances at court on November 5, 1611, another in spring 1613 as part of the wedding celebrations of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, the Elector Palatine, one in 1618, and another on January 18, 1624, before the Duchess of Richmond. The Revels Accounts also record that “The Winter's Tale was acted on Thursday night at Court, the 16 Janua[ry] 1633, by the K[ing's] players and liked.”
²

The play was not, however, much liked by Restoration audiences when the theaters reopened in 1660. The change of tone and location between the two halves of the play, the sixteen-year time gap, and the geographical solecism of a sea coast in landlocked Bohemia all offended prevailing neoclassical tastes. The same issues have worried some subsequent critics and directors.

In 1754 Macnamara Morgan's popular adaptation,
The Sheep-Shearing: or, Florizel and Perdita
, solved the problem by eliminating Leontes and Hermione entirely. It focused on the pastoral scenes, with Spranger Barry as Florizel and Isabel Nossiter as Perdita. The action was set in Bithynia, an ancient province of Asia Minor, rather than Bohemia (a change based on a suggestion in Thomas Hanmer's edition of the play). The Old Shepherd is finally revealed as a disguised Antigonus! Two years later David Garrick produced his version,
Florizel and Perdita, A Dramatic Pastoral
. The setting was returned to Bohemia; this version also featured the pastoral scenes
but now included the restoration in the final act. Garrick explained his intentions in the prologue:

Garrick's version had the benefit of a star-studded cast, with Garrick himself as Leontes, his leading lady Hannah Pritchard as Hermione, and the rising star Susannah Cibber as Perdita. It was a great success and was frequently revived until the end of the century, often in a double bill with
Catherine and Petruchio
, a similarly abridged version of
The Taming of the Shrew
. The Prince of Wales (and future King George IV) fell in love with the young actress Mary Robinson when she took over the part of Perdita in the early 1780s. He sent her love letters signed “Florizel” and she became known as “Perdita,” then she left the stage and became a famous society beauty and fashion icon. The affair with the prince ended in a public scandal, but Perdita, despite being partially paralyzed as a result of rheumatic fever, remade herself as a novelist, feminist pamphleteer, and poet, highly regarded by leading intellectuals such as William Godwin and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
⁴

It was John Philip Kemble who restored Shakespeare's play to the stage in 1802 at Drury Lane and later Covent Garden. While restoring the first three acts, with minor alterations, Kemble still omitted the figure of Time, a practice continued by several subsequent producers. The reviewer in
The Gentleman's Magazine
details with disapproval the eclectic mix of props and costumes used by Kemble, describing them as “The usual perloinings [
sic
] from the fashions of James I, Charles I, and Oliver's courts, and the common country garb of our own time.” He goes on to comment that “It remains for our classical managers to inform us, how this association of scenes, dresses, and decorations, of different ages, times, and places, could,
with any degree of propriety, probability, or consistency, be brought together in one point of view; leaving it to them to fix their own data, architecture, customs, or manners.”
⁵
Most critics, however, were impressed. The theater historian Dennis Bartholomeusz argues in his study of the play in performance that, in combining Gothic and Grecian settings, Kemble was responding, “whether consciously or not, to the different levels of time in the play.”
⁶
Kemble's Leontes was generally admired, while his sister Sarah Siddons' Hermione was regarded as one of her greatest roles: “
Kemble
, in Leontes, evinced a perfect knowledge of his author, and displayed a judgment and feeling which justly place it among his most successful parts. The agonies of extreme jealousy with which his mind is tortured, were admirably depicted … The Hermione of Mrs. Siddons towers above all praise.”
⁷

Actor-manager William Charles Macready also produced the play and played Leontes at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Critics were still carping about the play's form and structure. They compared Macready unfavorably to Kemble. His most distinguished Hermione was Helen Faucit, who wrote a detailed account of her experience:

Samuel Phelps' production at Sadler's Wells achieved critical and popular success with an interpretation of Leontes based on Coleridge's assessment of the character as a tormented man prone to jealousy. An innovation was the setting of the play in ancient Greece:

By far the most spectacular production, however, was at the Princess' Theatre in 1856, when, as the London
Times
review put it, “Mr. Charles Kean's principle of making the stage a vehicle for historical illustration was never carried out so far as in his revival of the
Winter's Tale
.”
¹⁰
Archaeological research supplied details for the Sicilian setting which opened with a view of the Temple of Minerva at Syracuse, followed by a Greek banquet in Act 1, enlivened by the introduction of dances including the “warlike Pyrrhic dance” with “[t]hree dozen ladies of the
corps de ballet
, attired in glittering armour as youthful warriors.” Hermione's trial in Act 3 took place in the theater at Syracuse. The previously banished figure of Time now reappeared as

Meanwhile, Bohemia reverted to Bithynia so as to allow maximum contrast with the barbaric tribes of Asia Minor for the pastoral scenes when “the sheep-shearing holyday is heightened into a Dionysiac orgie [
sic
], in which something like 200 dancers are employed.”
¹²
Florizel was played as a breeches part (a male part played by a female actor) by a Miss Heath and Ellen Terry made her first stage appearance as Mamillius.
¹³
Kean's production provided not only “gorgeous spectacle, but good and sufficient acting,”
¹⁴
and the play's enthusiastic reception seems to have been enhanced by the presence of Queen Victoria on the opening night. The satirical magazine
Punch
was less impressed, claiming:

The chief innovation in the 1887 production was American actor Mary Anderson's doubling of the roles of Hermione and Perdita. The show opened in Nottingham before transferring to the Lyceum and going on to a triumphant tour of the United States. Critical views were divided, most feeling that Anderson was more successful as
Perdita and criticizing the cutting of the text as well as Anderson's verse-speaking. The London
Times
was blunt:

In 1906 Herbert Beerbohm Tree produced another spectacular three-act version with a text cut by nearly half to allow for change of the elaborate sets, which included a running brook, several trees, and a donkey. The performances of the distinguished cast—Ellen Terry as Hermione, Charles Warner as Leontes, and Maud Tree as Paulina—were overwhelmed by sets and orchestra.

Harley Granville-Barker's 1912 production at the Savoy Theatre revolutionized the staging of Shakespeare's plays forever and his influence on modern production practices is still evident.
¹⁷
Critics were quick to recognize its significance: