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 Orphan (play) The Orphan (play) The Orphan or The Unhappy Marriage is a domestic tragedy, written by Thomas Otway in 1680. It was first produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre, and starred Elizabeth Barry as Monimia, Thomas Betterton as Castalio and Jo. Williams as Polydore. It precedes "Venice Preserv'd" and is therefore the first of Otway's two famous tragedies. Written in blank verse, it is the play that made Otway famous. "The Orphan" remained a stock piece on the stage until the 19th century. Thomas Otway was purported to have been deeply in love with Mrs. Barry, and it has been suggested