A pair of surgical gloves and a baby buggy got me thinking, recently, about what we can and can’t be expected to believe in when it comes to staging Shakespeare. The occasion was the Classic Stage Company production of A Winter’s Tale, directed by Barry Edelstein. The surgical gloves figured in the scene where Hermione’s gentlewoman Emilia informs Paulina that the jailed queen has given birth to a daughter, the buggy in the scene where Paulina forces her way into King Leontes’ presence with the baby.
It wasn’t just that the actress playing Emilia made a commotion with the gloves, or Continue reading