The Wide Gap of Sixteen Years: The Performance of Time in The Winter's Tale in Britain, 2001–2017

Abstract

This essay analyses the ways in which the choric figure of Time has been presented in ten major productions of The Winter’s Tale performed in Great Britain since the beginning of this century, as produced by the National Theatre, Propeller, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Bridge Project, the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company, and Cheek by Jowl. They exemplify radically different approaches to the challenge of presenting a classical allegorical figure on the modern stage. If Time would have been portrayed traditionally as an old man wearing a pair of wings and carrying a scythe and an hourglass, some of these emblems have ceased to be readable for present-day audiences. These productions, however, demonstrate that the character can be retained in performance in meaningful and creative ways, using a range of visual and dramaturgical devices. The essay is particularly concerned with the effects of doubling or conflating Time with other major roles, and with how some theatre directors have used the character to highlight the centrality of time as a theme in the play.