A Shakespeare Mystery’s Colorful Turn

The question, as it always is, is this: What about the bear? At Baltimore’s Center Stage, it galumphs into view, roaring and huffing, a great, blue manifestation of what must be Shakespeare’s most bizarre stage direction.

Blue?

Yes, blue.

“Exit, pursued by a bear,” instructed Shakespeare in Act 3, Scene 3 of “The Winter’s Tale.” What was the Bard thinking? Did he intend for a real bear--or perhaps an actor in a costume--to appear on stage? Should it be scary or amusing? Was the playwright toying with the directors of his day, or toying with us?

“The bear is just one of the strangenesses of ‘The Winter’s Tale,’” says Barbara Mowat, director of academic programs at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

The play, being performed at Center Stage through March 31, is definitely peculiar. Written in about 1610, it is both tragic and funny. Its story begins in Sicily, leaps 16 years and ends in Bohemia. There’s an irrationally jealous king, a beautiful, pregnant queen, a foundling, a prince in disguise, a hilariously dull-witted shepherd, a personification of time, a satyr who dances and a statue that comes to life.

“The bear makes as much sense as anything else,” Mowat says.

True, but get the bear right, and things begin to fall into place.

“The bear is indicative of the show’s entire aesthetic,” says Charlotte Stoudt, dramaturge at Center Stage. “It’s a narrative pivot point, the turn from tragedy to comedy in the play. It’s crazy. It’s campy. It’s fun. It’s scary. You have all these contradictory feelings, which add up to one of the best moments of the play.”

Debates have swirled around the bear for centuries. Initially, the arguments centered on whether Shakespeare intended for an actual bear to be let loose onstage--or for a man in a costume to act like a bear. “By now almost all the critics would agree that it would have had to be a man in a costume,” Mowat says.

In Elizabethan England, bears were familiar creatures. Men wagered on bear-baiting contests. Bears symbolized anger and tyranny; some likened them to the king. Bears also were seen as nurturing and courageous animals.

Over time, the bear in “The Winter’s Tale” has been portrayed as a puppet. A rug. A shadow. A man with a mask. Sometimes the creature horrifies the audience. Sometimes it evokes laughter. Sometimes it doesn’t appear at all.

For clues as to how Irene Lewis, artistic director at Center Stage, views the bear, consider this: The original script calls for the bear to appear only once--in Act 3 when he devours a man. In this production, the bear appears on stage four times.

Played by Warren “Wawa” Snipe, the blue bear, when on his hind feet, stands about 7 feet tall. Costumer Jennifer Sterns carved his head from foam and blue fur. She also purchased from a taxidermist two sets of eyes, one yellow to be used when the bear is angry, and one brown for his mellow moods.

“We needed a bear that was almost mythical,” says New York-based costume designer Candice Donnelly. “A bear that could lead the audience from the tragic parts of the play to the other, more whimsical, almost free-associated parts of the play.”

It was Donnelly’s idea to make the bear blue. Not long before she began to design the costumes for “The Winter’s Tale,” she saw a striking picture of blue feet in an Italian Vogue magazine. “We need a bear that is enormous,” said artistic director Lewis. “One that is scary, but not horrifying. A bear that is believable, but not completely realistic, that is “

“Blue,” said Donnelly.

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Holly Selby writes for the Baltimore Sun, a Tribune company.