Read Online The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare - Free Book Online Page B

the 1980s mainhouse productions (Ronald Eyre, 1981; Terry Hands, 1986) were described as Regency. Those in the 1990s were both early twentieth century: Gregory Doran (1999) opted for a “Ruritanian” setting, allowing echoes of tsarist autocracy within a recognizably modern world; Adrian Noble (1992) chose an English equivalent, with his 1930s Bohemia repeatedly compared to the painter Stanley Spencer’s Cookham, a kind of idealized English village.
    Trevor Nunn (1969), Noble (1984), Warchus (2002), and Cooke (2006) all opted for the mid-twentieth century. In Nunn’s case, he was choosing a totally contemporary setting, the only director to do so. Noble’s setting was postwar Sicily, combining the tiaras, medals, and ball gowns of an “ambassadorial reception” 35 with Mafia connotations. Warchus, too, drew out Mafia implications, but set his production in America, combining Hollywood film noir effects in Sicilia with an Appalachian setting for Bohemia.
Visual Setting and Emotional Color
    Within these periods, overall visual choices for these productions were remarkably similar, dictated by the cyclical and seasonal nature of the play and the theme of death and rebirth. Design choices thus almost inevitably start the play in a wintry world, with white or monochrome dominating both costumes and set (1969, 1981, 1986, 2002, 2006); others have opted instead for deep autumnal colors or the regal spectrum of purples and cold lilacs. The set here is usually minimalist and symbolic, while costume choices are stylish and sophisticated.
    In strong contrast, Bohemia moves us through spring to the high summer of the sheep-shearing. Here designers always provide an explosion of color, a high level of rustic naturalism, and a stage crowded with scenery, colorful costumes, and visual detail. Warm colors and bright lights predominate.
    The final movement returns us to the petrified winter of Sicilia; these scenes, by reverting to the previous sparse setting and cold and limited color spectrum, and by using lighting that frequently constricts the playing area, show us a world frozen and often dark, until the advent of Perdita and Florizel brings with it light and indications of return to life.
Music
    The musical underscoring of the action follows a similar trajectory. Minimalist solo instruments (e.g. sitar in 1976, piano in 1986) and sounds of “haunting … remote melancholy” 36 are typical in Sicilia, while in Bohemia a live band not only appears regularly onstage as part of the sheep-shearing festivities, but also often provides full-blooded offstage accompaniment to scene changes and even Autolycus’ solo songs: these often have a music hall or vaudeville tone regardless of the period setting. The Appalachian bluegrass band of Warchus’ Bohemia also played throughout the interval, getting the audience into the mood for the second half.
1960: On the Brink of a New Era
    Peter Wood’s production in the first year of the RSC faced both forward and backward, showing us
The Winter’s Tale
at a clear turning point. Reviewers were still hampered by their negative preconceptions of the play, but were willing to have these overturned, as the
Financial Times
reviewer indicated: “triumphing over the bristling incredibilities and complex snags of this melodramatic fairytale … [the] company have achieved a small theatrical near-miracle.” 37 The production was generally highly regarded. The
Daily Telegraph
reviewer noted how
    Mr Wood gave it a sombre setting of rusts and dark blues and employed some sheer magic with his lighting so that asLeontes soliloquises in corrosive error, his words wing out from the darkening stage as from his soul straight into our hearts. Under this treatment the bear that makes his dinner of Antigonus and the imagined sea coast of Bohemia fall into place as part of Shakespeare’s bodying force [
sic
] of the strangest imaginings. 38
    Jacques