Exit, pursued by a bear
But first?
“The most famous line in The Winter’s Tale is actually a stage direction: ‘Exit pursued by a bear’ (3.3.57).” Page 287.
Excerpt From This Is Shakespeare by Emma Smith
Personally, I have a deep, abiding affection for this play. I first saw it, back in the Naughty Nineties, at UT’s Winedale Shakespeare. It was possible, in the distant days, to take the back road around the IRS compound, and jump on the highway out of town. Made Winedale in less than an hour. Shakespeare high comedy, rich latter works, and trailer parks.
One fun bit of trivia is the explicit stage directions, a leftover note of marginalia: Exit, pursued by a bear.
What amused me much at that time, it was a play that wasn’t performed often, not many video choices, and I finally got to add it the list of plays I’d seen. Since then, I think it’s been every few years at Winedale.
Exit, pursued by a bear
Earlier, Sir Ian suggested that Leontes was the most challenging character to play.
“One student asked McKellen about the most complex role he had to tackle in Shakespeare, which earned the young man applause from the crowd. McKellen said it was the jealous king in “The Winter’s Tale,” as he had to show the character “falling into jealousy” the same way someone would fall in love.” (source)
Exit, pursued by a bear
Some years ago, I was driving my dad, in my old truck, down the “Drag” in Austin. He stirred then commented that the current crop of college students looked so young.
Enter Shepherd:
“I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting— (III.iii.58)
Exit, pursued by a bear
The one line I wanted to relish? “Exit, pursued by a bear?” got a dull roar offstage, but compared to the rest of the performance? Really a well-done Winedale show. Just excellent. Pacing, diction, playing to the crowd, several outstanding performances, and I’m back to what Sir Ian suggested about “falling into jealousy.”
Not sure, but I think it was the dulcet strains of Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road as part of the musical break, played on a clarinet-looking thing, or, for me, the liberty taken to introduce Autolycus strumming a six-string, singing a few bars from “Plastic Jesus.”
I was trying to take notes, but the handwriting, me trying to be surreptitious and yet, remember to make note of some nuance? Didn’t work. Swept along by the show, from the opening scene to the tear-jerk ending.
Exit, pursued by a bear
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- Winter’s Tale 2022
Exit, pursued by a bear
It was a fitting high comedy to end Shakespeare’s birthday weekend.
