The Winter's Tale play contains one of the most famous Shakespearean stage directions: "Exit, pursued by a bear", presaging the offstage death of Antigonus. It is not known whether Shakespeare used a real bear from the London bear-pits, or an actor in bear costume. The Royal Shakespeare Company, in one production of this play, used a large sheet of silk which moved and created shapes, to symbolise both the bear and the gale in which Antigonus is travelling. One comic moment in the play deals with a servant not realising that poetry featuring references to dildos is vulgar, presumably from not knowing what
The Bear (play) the gardener and coachman. "The Bear"'s comedy derives from the characters' lack of self-knowledge. The widow Popova fancies herself inconsolably bereaved, while Smirnov considers himself a misogynist. They are both stock examples of "alazons": figures made ludicrous by pretending to be more than they actually are. "The Bear" is one of many of Chekhov's "farce-vaudevilles", which also includes "The Proposal," "A Tragedian in Spite of Himself", and the unfinished "Night before the Trial". In a letter to Yakov Polonsky on February 22, 1888 Chekhov wrote: Chekhov used the French play "Les Jurons de Cadillac" by Pierre Berton as inspiration for