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 Bear". The main similarity between the two involves the idea of the male being a 'bear' tamed by a woman. "Les Jurons de Cadillac" was originally performed by the actor Nikolai Solovstov, whom Chekhov dedicates "The Bear" to and ultimately plays the role of Smirnov. It had its first English language premiere in London in 1911. The United States premiere was in New York in 1915. In 1935, Russian theatre producer and director Vsevolod Meyerhold produced "33 Swoons" (also translated as "33 Fainting Fits"), which was a production that combined Chekhov's "The Anniversary", "The Bear", and "The Proposal". Meyerhold