Free The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

Noel’s set design was economical and flexible, using “the vast empty spaces of the Stratford stage to conjure up medieval palaces, great plains and mighty seas.” 39 Yet its “modernism” clearly looked back fifty years to Granville-Barker and Gordon Craig, and elements of the resplendent barbarism that characterized the previous Stratford production in 1948 still lingered on. The
New Statesman
critic described the trial scene as displaying “barbaric magnificence … swirling cloaks of crimson velvet, grotesquely armed soldiery, savagely grinning masks, all the grim pomp and tawdry splendour of Medievalism gone mad.” 40 The costumes throughout were regal and imposing, in rich colors, with deep ruffs, cloaks, and flowing sleeves, while Mamillius was dressed as “a miniature copy of his father.” 41 The production focused as much on the public roles as the private experience—imposing crowns were worn throughout, though Wood broke with tradition in excluding the court from the final scene. A further controversial innovation was to transform the usual “genteel trippings” of the sheep-shearing into “a full-bodied fertility rite.” 42
    Eric Porter’s Leontes was universally lauded, “meet[ing] the play’s initial difficulty by ‘striking twelve’ at once, thrusting the action forward with burning force and ferocity … [yet] still a man and not a monster … The hysterical tyrant of the play’s opening and the benign penitent of its close are credibly one and the same.” 43 Elizabeth Sellers’ “serene … long-suffering” Hermione was virtually ignored by the critics, but Peggy Ashcroft revolutionized perceptions of Paulina, repositioning her from the expected “querulous character part” 44 as a “female Polonius” 45 or a “terrible scold and barking harridan” 46 to establish her as a leading role, a woman “endowed … with profound common sense and practical humanity … epitomis[ing] the generosity and sadness of age.” 47

    3. Paulina, a force for good: Peggy Ashcroft presenting the baby to Leontes (Eric Porter) in Peter Wood’s 1960 production.
    Thus, while in many ways Wood’s production belonged to the pre-RSC tradition, it clearly also provided a transition that allowed a serious reevaluation of the play and its potential, enabling the interpretations to come.
1969: Cubism and Carnaby Street
    By contrast, Trevor Nunn’s innovative and highly controversial production brought
The
Winter’s Tale
sharply up to date, both in setting and approach. Dressed all in white on a bare white set, the Sicilian characters wore “contemporary neck-buttoned jackets and bell-bottomed trousers” 48 with Polixenes “a splash of scarlet,” 49 while the Bohemian sheep-shearing festival featured “a bunch of hippies on a musical picnic.” 50 References to Carnaby Street and the scandalous nude musical
Hair
abounded. In keeping with the mood of the 1960s, Nunn was interested in “a representative individual … [not] a crowned king.” 51 The crowns were accordingly absent, and theplay opened in Mamillius’ nursery, rather than in the context of a royal banquet.

    4. “Hippies on a musical picnic”: Judi Dench as Perdita takes a tumble with her Florizel (David Bailie) in Trevor Nunn’s 1969 production.
    Despite this human emphasis, the production was heavily stylized. As the lights went down, the audience heard “a deep voice speak[ing] out of the air, hushing the theatre in mystery.” 52 Meanwhile, strobe lighting illuminated a rotating glass cube in which an agonized Leontes was imprisoned, his arms and legs outstretched like Leonardo’s
Renaissance Man.
A spotlight then picked out “another glass box, a tiny one this time, with a tiny mannikin revolving in it.” 53 The lights finally came up on a nursery