It's the play with that immortal – and tricky – stage direction 'Exit pursued by bear', and on seeing the RSC do Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, I have to wonder if he just wanted it to be difficult to stage. Maybe he hoped it would be left alone, slightly like Artaud's The Spurt of Blood, which is famously difficult to perform. Shakey's given this an unbalanced plot, with a sudden geographical and chronological jump, and hasty decision-making from characters who should know better. Then there's that audacious final twist (and the bear feels like a last-ditch effort at making it all impossible to stage). But, somehow, the RSC make it work. Their evident confidence in their own abilities is justified, and the tone they strike is absolutely right. They hold the half-formed threads of this thing together carefully, but wonderfully. And that bear is a triumph of puppetry.
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