Last year, for New Play Project's Bad Play Project, where playwrights were encouraged to write purposely bad plays, I wrote a play based off of that famous (infamous?) stage direction in The Winter's Tale. Since I am reading that play again, I thought I'd share that (bad) play with you here:
Pursued by a Bear
Scholar: Good evening and welcome to tonight's scholarly look at The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare. I'll be your scholar and host, Professor Geoffrey Spencer Hall. We begin tonight where we left off yesterday, with Act III, Scene 3, the sea coast of Bohemia: a shipwreck.
This scene is possibly one of the more famous of this somewhat less than famous work by the Bard. Here we met Antigonus, a lord of Sicilia, carrying the infant daughter of King Leontes, who has been banished by the mad king who suspects the child of being the issue and evidence of adultery on the part of his wife and queen. Antigonus cannot bear to see the young innocent child killed, so he has a plan: he will leave her on the shore in the hopes that someone will find her. And just as he is abandoning her we have the most famous stage direction ever written: "Exit, pursued by a bear."
(Enter Antigonus, running, pursued by a bear)
Ant- Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Bear! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Sch- There actually is no bear.
Ant- Aaaaaaaaaaaaa -- What? But I'm being pursued by a bear.
Sch- No, you're not.
Ant- Yes, I am. It says right there in the script, "Exit, pursued by a bear." !
Sch- Yes, that's what the script says, but there is no actual bear.
Ant - Then what's that pursuing me?
Sch- The bear is merely a symbol, it never actually existed. Shakespeare uses the bear as a symbol of Mother Nature, of nature, and of mothers in general. It is a well known adage that one must never come between a mother bear and her cubs; her rage at anyone seen to be meddling with her offspring is legendary. And here Shakespeare uses a bear to exact Nature's revenge upon the character of Antigonus, who is in the very act of exposing a child to the elements.
Ant- I didn't mean to, I am bound to serve my king! I wasn't going to kill her, I swear!
Sch- Of course you weren't! Not after that dream you had last night.
Ant- How do you know about my dream?
Sch- It's in the script, you give a big long monologue about it, describing how Hermoine, the queen and mother to this child, appeared to you in a vision. How you know by this apparition that she has died, most likely from grief at being spurned by her husband, labeled adulteress and traitor by her king, and having her newborn daughter ripped from her to be disposed of. She threatened you for undertaking this act, the will of your mad king, her husband, and swore in her wrath that you would never again see your own wife.
Ant- Wow! That's exactly what happened! You're good.
Sch- Four centuries of scholars have debated on this subject. In your dream you saw the mother of the child you intended to kill come to avenge the wrongs done against her, and when you were about to leave her child to be exposed and die of the elements, the ultimate angry mother figure, the bear, appears to pursue and devour you.
Ant- You mean I'm going to get eaten, too? That sucks! I'm just doing what I'm told.
Sch- Indeed you are. It seems Shakespeare is making a point here that was way ahead of its time, and would not become official until the Geneva Convention: that soldiers are not exempt from warcrimes or crimes against humanity simply because they were following orders. You were expected to disobey inhumane orders. What are you, a Nazi?
Ant- What's a Nazi?
Sch- Never mind.
(Sound cue: Bear roar and crashing through trees)
Ant- What was that?
Sch- What was what?
Ant- That roaring and crashing sound I just heard? Is that the bear coming to get me?
Sch- Don't be ridiculous! I've told you there is no bear.
Ant- I know, I know. It's a symbol. But I'm pretty sure I just heard a bear.
Sch- No, you didn't. But even if you did, I mean, even if there was an actual bear in the play, it is not pursuing you as much as it is being pursued.
Ant- What does that mean?
Sch- Bear-baiting was a very popular form of public entertainment in Shakespeare's day. Bears would be brought in and chained to a stake in the middle of a pit or theatre-like arena called a bear garden, and then trained hunting dogs would be loosed upon it until either the bear or the dogs were dead. And people would take bets on which would win the fight.
Ant- That's cruel!
Sch- Not in Shakespeare's day, which is also yours, so shut up! It was much enjoyed by royalty and commoners alike. The only evidence we have of people disapproving of the sport in Shakespeare's time only complained that it was being performed on Sundays, which the Puritans saw as 'breaking the Sabbath', any other day it was totally acceptable.
Ant- And what does that have to do with me, and my imminent doom?
Sch- There is no doom! That bear in the play is not pursuing you, it is being pursued by dogs for sport! Shakespeare has written this bear into the play as either a clever social commentary or a cheap appeal to the audience's baser pleasures.
Ant- You mean, that this bear is chasing me because it is trying to exact revenge upon an Elizabethan society which revels in bear-baiting? It's gonna eat me to stop me from siccing my dogs upon it and killing it?
Sch- That's one theory, yeah. The bear makes an appearance here in this play in an attempt to show audiences just how inhumane bear-baiting is. The other theory, though, is that Shakespeare knew that bear-baiting was so popular and sought to give his public what they wanted: cheap entertainment in the form of a bear attack.
Ant- A bear attacking me is entertainment?!
Sch- Sure, it's funny! In a morbid, schadenfreude sort of way. You know, pleasure in other's pain, better you than me?
Ant- Schadenfreude? Taking pleasure in my pain? Is that what Nazi is?
Sch- Close enough. Anyway, are we clear now that the bear is simply a symbol, or a figment of the mind? Something meant to encourage scholarly debate?
Ant- If you say so. Though it sounds to me like scholars are kinda grasping at straws, here.
Sch- What do you mean by that?
Ant- Well, it's been four hundred years since these plays were written, right?
Sch- Yeah ...
Ant- And there has been this 'scholarly debate' since pretty much the beginning, right?
Sch- Yes. Learned men have been discussing the deeper themes and meanings ever since the first performance of William Shakespeare's first play.
Ant- Which means, that by now, you've probably run out of new intelligent things to say about them.
Sch- Wait a minute. These works are so universal, so wonderful-
Ant- That there will always be new things to discuss? Do you really believe that? Or are you just trying to justify your career?
Sch- Well, maybe you've got a point. But it doesn't change the fact that scholars agree that the bear in this play is not an actual bear but a symbol of something much more important!
(Bear growls and tree branch breaking sounds get louder)
Ant- Oh, you mean that bear? That bear getting very dangerously close here, is just a symbol? A symbol of what?
Sch- Of ... Of .... Of deeper themes. Of deep intellectual meaning. Of ... Of irony and wit and scholarly stuff!
Ant- Right. It looks to me like it's just a hungry bear.
Sch- Which is exactly what it is! But it's only hungry because it's been starved to make it more aggressive when they send the dogs at it. It is a SYMBOL!
(Enter Bear, growling.)
Sch- Bear! Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Bear! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
(Exit. Pursued by a bear.)
