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 Dances the rich were powerful might be replaced by a régime where the powerful are rich." Despite approval of its subject-matter ("Any study of conditions in Soviet Russia is certain at the moment to command attention," noted "The Spectator") and praise for the directing, acting, and designs, the reviewers found "The Bear Dances" "overladen with pamphleteering argument, on both sides". "The play's weakness lies in its tendency to repeated pleading," observed Ivor Brown in "The Week-end Review". "Heavy blue pencilling would have given this play a chance of life," agreed John Pollock in "The Saturday Review". "The Stage" conceded that the