Anna Writes Books

A hand carved Owl door, Denmark, 1930s

babe wake up, new Shakespeare uquiz just dropped

“and all i loved, i loved alone.”

it’s also why there was a revival of the unattributed and at the time probably rather out of fashion mucedorus at the globe in 1610 (the same year as the winter’s tale), and why ben jonson wrote a chariot pulled by bears into his court masque oberon, performed on new year’s day of 1611.

we think the answer is polar bears.

no, seriously!  in late 1609 the explorer jonas poole captured two polar bear cubs in greenland and brought them home to england, where they were purchased by the beargarden, the go-to place in elizabethan london for bear-baiting and other ‘animal sports.’  it was at the time run by edward alleyn (yes, the actor) and his father-in-law philip henslowe (him of the admiral’s men and that diary we are all so very grateful for), and would have been very close, if not next to, the globe theatre.

of course, polar bear cubs are too little and adorable for baiting, even to the bloodthirsty tudor audience, aren’t they?  so, what to do with the little bundles of fur until they’re too big to be harmless?  well, if there’s anything we know about the playwrights and theatre professionals of the time, it’s that they knew how to make money and draw in audiences.  and the spectacle of a too-small-to-be-dangerous-yet-but-still-real-live-and-totally-WHITE-bear?  what good entertainment businessman is going to turn down that opportunity? 

Imagine a fully grown man running offstage to be “killed” by a baby polar bear.

This post has lived in my head since it was first posted almost 5 years ago.

The thing is: for modern audiences and theater producers The Winter’s Tale is something of a mess. Because most of the action immediately after “Exit, Pursued by bear” is a harvest/shepherd’s feast, with the guests breaking into random songs, and then stopping to watch a troupe of dancers perform, rinse and repeat, for a full half hour or so, and doesn’t seem to do much to move the story forward at all.

But Shakespeare wasn’t writing the play for us. He was writing for an audience with a whole bunch of people who didn’t usually go to hear a play, and only showed up to catch a glimpse of this bear everyone’s been talking about. That moment happens in the middle of the story. So how do you keep a whole chunk of the audience from leaving, after the cute white fluff ball has waddled his way across the stage?

You give them a musical concert and acrobat show – get them singing along to favorite songs they already know, get them to feel like they’re actually guests at a real feast, instead of just watching one. And then, at the height of the fun, when everyone’s laughing and having a grand ol’ time, you bring the plot back, and threaten the young heroine and her family with death by hanging.

Brilliant audience wrangling, if you ask me.