The Winter’s Tale

Maddened by sexual jealousy, King Leontes savages his good and chaste wife’s reputation, loses his son to grief, and condemns his daughter to death. Is The Winter’s Tale another Othello? Nothing of the sort. Winter melts into spring, statues come to life, youth triumphs, and cruelty is forgiven in a festival of love and flowers. Much of the action takes place on “the seacoast of Bohemia” — a never-never land, a faraway place straight out of the imagination. In this fantastical sphere, everything is spectacle and surprise. This is, after all, the play with the most famous stage direction in theater history, the amazing: “Exit, pursued by a bear.”