Spectatorship in The Winter’s Tale
The presence of characters who are consummate performers has been noted countless
times by Shakespearean scholars. The list is long but obviously includes both the Richards,
Cleopatra, Iago and many others. There are different types of performer, but if we are to
consider that performance involves a deliberate effort to mislead others, either by
concealing some thoughts, feelings or behaviour or by feigning others, by consciously
adopting a role which is not the one that the audience is led to believe is the character’s real
identity, then performance of this kind is very common indeed. Some characters are better
actors than others or find themselves in situations where they are forced into performing
(Viola in Twelfth Night, for example). These performer-characters are not always villains as
we can see in the case of Rosalind in As You Like It and therefore are not limited to the
histories or tragedies. What they all have in common is the need for an on-stage audience,
for if these performers practise deception, it is usually other characters who are taken in and
not the “real” audience. There are exceptions of course as we will see, but the audience is
often let into the secrets of the performer-character and this constitutes a key element in
the creation and development of dramatic irony. Since the performer-characters frequently
occupy strategic positions in the play and are endowed with an impressive array of
intellectual rather than moral qualities, it is not really surprising that they have hogged the
limelight, leaving their intellectually inferior victims or targets to receive less attention.
However, the two go together, there can be no performer-character without a
corresponding spectator-character. How and why a character succeeds in misleading others
will tell us much, not just about himself, but also about the others, the context etc. This
interaction is therefore essential to our understanding of the play. However, beyond
constituting a further contribution to the creation of the dramatic universe, the way
spectator-characters respond or fail to respond may help us understand more easily the way
Shakespearean theatre functioned and may help us grasp how we might be expected to
react in some scenes. The plays may therefore not only suggest the different roles we play in
life, the idea that “all the world’s a stage”1, but also the different ways of responding to the
roles played by others, the idea that “all the world’s an audience”.
It could be added that the type of play Shakespeare was writing and the actual stage on
which it was to be performed reinforce the significance of spectator-characters. The setting
of scenes in open or public places and the inclusion of historical or political events mean that
for every main character directly involved, there are many more looking on, watching and
commenting on the proceedings, multiplying the points of view and opening up new
possibilities for the action. We ignore our on-stage counterparts at our peril.
These preliminary remarks apply, of course, to The Winter’s Tale, however, I should like to
argue that the action of watching, interpreting and reacting is all the more important here
since much of the action is precisely centred on watching and being watched from the
beginning to the end. Virtually all the characters are involved in this at one point or other. It
is therefore vital that we observe quite closely, not just the performer-characters, but also
the on-stage spectators in order to be led and to avoid being misled.
We will notice that the play repeatedly offers different or even contradictory perspectives
on the action through the on-stage spectators, as we might expect, but more importantly
the on-stage spectators’ interaction with the real audience is particularly interesting and
1. William Shakespeare, As You Like It, II, 7.
1
varied. The audience’s perception evolves in relation to that of the on-stage spectators in
quite a number of surprising ways. At times, Shakespeare seems set on allowing the
audience to see and understand more, and more clearly, than the characters, using dramatic
irony repeatedly to good effect. However, this is not the only position offered to us, for at
other times, the audience is not given this privileged role. Sometimes they see less and have
to rely on the on-stage characters to put them in the picture with all the uncertainties that
this kind of trust entails. Ultimately, the play seems to suggest that we are just as likely to
misunderstand and misinterpret as the characters unless we are particularly attentive to the
hints left for us throughout.
The Winter’s Tale begins and ends with reference to providing a spectacle. The opening
scene may seem rather uninteresting compared with the drama to come, but it does lead
the way with Archidamus insisting on the “entertainment” (1.1.8).2 Leontes has provided for
his guest and then expressing fears that Polixenes will never be able to put on a similar kind
of extravaganza during the planned return visit. Before being considered, at least by Leontes,
as rivals in love, Leontes and Polixenes are seen as rival impresarios, showmen intending to
outdo each other in their demonstrations of hospitality. This idea, of course, is soon
forgotten as the second scene of the play quickly introduces another and potentially more
disturbing spectacle, that of Polixenes with Hermione.
This scene sets a pattern for many subsequent scenes: the stage space becomes double
with one part reserved for the on-stage spectator(s) and the other part being a kind of
interior stage on which another character or group of characters can be seen and heard in
one way or another. This structure allows many variations. The spectator-character may be
hidden in the case of unauthorised spectatorship or may be observing openly. He may see
and not hear or vice versa. Those being observed may be aware of being observed or not.
They may be performing with an audience in mind. In both cases, the observer may
misinterpret, mishear and jump to the wrong conclusions. Finally, the audience is invited to
observe both the watchers and the watched so that discrepancies between what the
watchers say they can see and what the audience sees may emerge. There is always, of
course, the possibility that the audience may be led astray by the on-stage spectatorcharacter(s).
It is worth noting that Leontes, in scene 2, also uses the term “entertainment” (1.2.110
and 117) as Archidamus did in scene 1. If the audience is expected to take the term at its
face value when used by Archidamus, Leontes obviously means to be ironical. However, it is
not at all certain that they will be convinced by Leontes. Although there is no proof, for the
moment, that Leontes is wrong, there is also no proof that he is right, unless the production
chooses to suggest there is something suspicious in the way Hermione and Polixenes
behave. (This possibility is discussed in the various studies of the play in production. See
Tatspaugh and Warren, in particular.) The use of on-stage spectators at the beginning of a
play frequently creates complications for the audience who cannot be sure at this early
stage who is to be trusted. It is Leontes’ sudden change of tone which seems strange rather
than anything the two others do. Even if we leave to one side the thorny question of what
prompts Leontes’ jealous outburst, we can notice that it is not just the idea that Hermione
and Polixenes are lovers that seems to disturb him, but also the idea that they are
pretending, that their behaviour is a show, a semblance of which he is the unwilling
spectator. This is already clear in the reference to “practised smiles” (1.2.115). To whom are
2. This and all subsequent quotations is taken from the Oxford Shakespeare edition of the play.
2
these insincere smiles being addressed? In his later interrogation of Camillo, Leontes insists
on the fact that he has been observing Hermione and Polixenes, his suspicion being founded
on what he sees:
Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh?—a note infallible
Of breaking honesty! Horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift?
Hours minutes? Noon midnight? And all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? (1.2.281-289)
In this speech, we are either surprised by Leontes’ apparently extraordinary powers of
observation, or have the impression that he is applying the conventions of drama or even
melodrama to interpret the behaviour of Hermione and Polixenes. The speech contains all
the features of an illicit romantic encounter, including references to what the lovers are
thinking and feeling. It is noticeable that Leontes seems to predict future developments as if
they were part of a narrative (286). If he has been able to witness this, how is it no one else
can? Leontes can be seen to be a spectator with too much imagination, a spectator who also
seems to have written the script and directed the actors. It is by stressing the gap between
what Leontes thinks he sees with what the rest of the court sees and then by allowing the
audience to see for themselves that Leontes comes to be considered as an incompetent
spectator and an equally inept performer, since his own attempt at pretending all is well fails
quite lamentably. In 1.2.346, he announces to Camillo: “I will seem friendly, as thou hast
advised me”. He obviously fails, since a few lines later, Polixenes declares: “The King hath on
him such a countenance/As he had lost some province” (364-365). The results of Leontes’
failures as spectator and as performer prove disastrous.
Other characters also find themselves forced to act as spectators, which may constitute
an unfamiliar and rather humiliating experience. Hearing of Florizel’s frequent absences
from the court, Polixenes decides to observe him in disguise (4.2.53). Although the disguise
suggests he is also a performer-character, he and Camillo appear more like passive onlookers at the sheep-shearing feast than active participants. Contrary to the previous
example, the spectator-characters here do actually witness a performance of sorts: Perdita is
playing the role of the queen of the feast, whilst Florizel is disguised as the shepherd,
Doricles (4.4.7-10). To some extent, the act of watching is legitimate, although their disguise
is not. Polixenes’ opinion of Perdita, veers from praising her beauty and charm, even
suggesting she is “too noble for this place” (4.4.159) to branding her “a piece of excellent
witchcraft” (4.4.419-420) and threatening disfigurement when Florizel announces his
intention of marrying her. Polixenes judges Perdita only on outward appearances; he lacks
the imagination to see beyond her material situation. In this instance, the audience cannot
but take sides with Florizel who is endowed with more discernment than his father. Contrary
to the real audience, Polixenes and Camillo are only able to identify one level in Perdita’s
performance, when in fact of course, she is a princess, brought up as a shepherdess, playing
the role of the queen of the feast. They seem to grasp Perdita’s innate nobility only when it
is part of an explicit performance, only when they themselves are disguised and caught up in
3
their own performance. Paradoxically, once they break out of their disguise, their ability to
see clearly fails them. What seems to be at stake here is the idea of a contract binding
performers and spectators. The play hints at what happens when one side breaks the rules,
by applying the conventions of performance to behaviour which is not performance or by
failing to identify performance as performance.
Much of the sheep-shearing feast in Act 4 can be seen in terms of spectatorship since
there are several groups performing (song and dance) or watching others perform, as well as
Polixenes and Camillo, but once again we are given examples of inappropriate response,
notably in the case of reactions to Autolycus.
As far as the number and diversity of on-stage spectators is concerned, Act 4 also focuses
on the different ways Autolycus is viewed by the participants at the feast. His role as
performer is fairly constant, but what he says and does is not always identified as
performance by others. In such cases, they are to be considered as unwilling and unwitting
spectators. This is especially true of the Clown in 4.3 and both the Clown and the Old
Shepherd at the end of the act, providing us with both visual and verbal humour.
In the three examples we have mentioned, the real spectators are placed in a superior
position to the characters through dramatic irony. It is clear that the ideal spectator should
be capable of discernment, intuition and intelligence, the very qualities that Leontes,
Polixenes and the Clown are shown lacking. However, this is not enough. The dramatist
cannot always count on the audience’s noting important facts and interpreting them
correctly. At times it is necessary to use the on-stage characters to draw the attention of the
audience to particular elements they cannot see for themselves. A variety of techniques are
used to compensate for the audience’s inadequacies. In such cases, the spectator-characters
act as proxies for the audience, to supplement the information that the audience usually
picks up directly.
Hence, we have descriptions such as that given by Cleomenes and Dion of their visit to
the oracle (3.1.1-20). They behave like spectators by describing and commenting on what
they have witnessed for the benefit of the audience. Since we have been assured of their
reliability, their “stuffed sufficiency” (2.1.185), we are prepared to let them watch, listen,
react and interpret in our place. This case is a simple one and is required in Shakespearean
drama because the bare stage cannot evoke changing landscapes without resort to “verbal
painting” which is “not just a necessary way of filling in gaps in stage technology” (Herman,
52). In this case, we cannot speak of double space in the usual sense of the term where the
stage distinguishes between the observers and the object of their observation.
More interesting is the case of Paulina’s description of baby Perdita in Act 2 Scene 3 (96107). For obvious reasons, it is difficult to bring a real baby on stage, and even if there were
one, it is highly unlikely that the audience would be able to notice its resemblance to its
father. In this scene, Leontes refuses to look at the child so Paulina’s description of the
baby’s features is addressed ostensibly to Leontes, to the courtiers around him to a lesser
degree and indirectly to the audience. Paulina attempts to convince Leontes the baby is his
child and at the same time to convince the audience that there is a baby. This sequence can
be compared to the extract quoted before where Leontes claims to see Hermione and
Polixenes in close-up so to speak. Leontes, however, failed to convince us that what he
thinks he sees is actually there. Can we not also see this sequence with the baby as a trial
run for the final scene in the way it stresses both attention to detail and calls for a leap of
faith from the spectators? Marion O’Connor makes the same remarks about how the
audience is brought to believe in the existence of this baby in Act 3. 3 when she says:
4
“Dramatically speaking, the presence of Perdita is everything at this point. Theatrically
speaking, however, it is nothing at all, there is no baby” (382).
Our final example, although there are many we could choose from, of the audience being
helped along thanks to onstage spectator-characters, concerns Act 3 Scene 3. The storm
scene on the one hand and the devouring of Antigonus by the bear on the other hand are
notoriously difficult to stage (see Coghill). Once again, on-stage spectators will help the
audience so that we think we have seen with our own eyes what we have in fact simply been
told, in the case of the shipwreck, which no production seems to have attempted to stage.
Contrary to the example with the oracle which corresponds more closely to simple reported
action, the storm scene is actually taking place in front of us, but we cannot quite make out
what is happening. In this instance, two spectator-characters intervene. First Antigonus
describes what he can see (3.3.48-54) as it is happening. His description creates a dramatic
effect especially when, from being a simple observer, he is turned into a participant, being
attacked by the bear. The Clown’s version is told in retrospect (3.3.85-98). He tells of the
shipwreck in a less dramatic fashion, firstly since he is not directly affected by it and also
because he wants to give more weight to his account of the bear’s attack. Both the Clown
and the Old Shepherd in this sequence enjoy, in turn, their role as storytellers addressing a
rapt listener. The two competing versions of the storm may serve to indicate to the audience
that the play is on the verge of turning from tragedy to comedy. It also serves as a timely
warning of the dangers and difficulties of interpreting what we see or think we see. This
sequence illustrates how a single event can give rise to diverse or even contradictory
reactions.
All the examples we have chosen so far illustrate the necessity for the spectators to be
attentive to detail and to give equal importance to what they see and to what they hear. The
play has shown us many types of incompetent spectators in response to various types of
performance (real, imagined or unrecognised). The characters who have failed as spectators
have been suitably punished, but they will be given a second chance in the final scene of the
play. (The punishments range from losing money and experiencing fear in the case of the
Clown and Old Shepherd to the much more extreme punishment meted out to Leontes.) As
for the audience in the theatre, they are given the chance to respond in a more direct and
less mediated way.
Whether this final scene was added at a later date or not may never be proved one way
or the other (see Susan Synder’s introduction to the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition for
a discussion of the theory). What can be said is that it focuses quite clearly on the act of
observing and constitutes a particularly interesting example of spectatorship. The audience
has been told in Act 5 Scene 2 that Paulina has in her possession a life-like statue of
Hermione. Discussion of the verisimilitude of the statue is sufficient to arouse the audience’s
curiosity and it is clearly stated by Leontes at the beginning of scene 3 that it is this work
which he, Perdita and other members of the court are anxious to see. We will try to study
how the final scene reveals other types of spectatorship which prove theatrically very
effective.
Andrew Gurr has argued in favour of distinguishing between an audience and spectators:
“An audience comes to hear, and therefore it clusters as closely as possible round the
speaker. Spectators came to see, and so they position themselves where they can confront
the spectacle [...]. Shakespearean playgoers were members of a crowd surrounding the
speakers, their priority listening, not viewing” (1). In the case of The Winter’s Tale, the act of
looking comes to be as important as the act of listening.
5
We can first note the use of stage space. As already mentioned, the presence of on-stage
spectators tends to divide up the space between the watchers and the watched, so that one
part of the stage is framed by the observers. This framing effect can be made visible in a
number of ways. In the case of Act 5 Scene 3, several devices are used. First, the object of
everyone’s curiosity is concealed. The following remark by Paulina is addressed both to the
on-stage characters and the audience insofar as it invites everyone to pay attention to what
they are about to see: “But here it is—prepare/To see the life as lively mocked as ever/Still
sleep mocked death” (18-20). The gesture of pulling back the curtain further reinforces the
identification of Leontes’ group as spectators. There are two references to the curtain in the
stage directions (20 and 59) and two in the dialogue (68 and 83). Secondly, the statue is
placed on a higher level so that the characters have to look up to it. This again sets it apart
from the other characters. When the time comes, Paulina orders Hermione to “descend”
(5.3.99). Whether we actually get to see the statue from the front depends on the
production. In some productions, the statue may be placed downstage and Leontes and his
group upstage. We could also imagine a compromise with characters in profile. What should
be stressed is that whether we see Hermione from the front or from behind does not alter
the fact that she is revealed to us at the same time as she is revealed to the other characters.
Although there are quite a number of characters on stage at this point, an effect of
maximum concentration is achieved by creating a silent and immobile stage picture. A
number of remarks in the text indicate this. Paulina says: “I like your silence” (5.3.21) and
has to ask Leontes to speak. Before she makes the statue move, Paulina orders everyone to
“stand still” (95) and Leontes promises “No foot shall stir” (98). In fact, it is suggested that
the observers have been transfixed and are as immobile as the statue itself. In Leontes’
speech beginning at line 32, there are three references to stone which refer to the statue
(37), to himself (38) and to Perdita (42). The effect achieved is that the audience and onstage spectators find themselves participating in the same action: that of watching at the
same time.
Furthermore, the audience is invited to contemplate the statue with as much
concentration as the characters. In a parallel with the baby scene, Leontes and Polixenes
point out specific features “See, my lord,/Would you not deem it breathed, and that those
veins/Did verily bear blood?” (63-65). Polixenes mentions “her lip” (66), Leontes “her eye”
(67). Time is made to slow down almost to a standstill as the characters gaze in amazement.
It is noteworthy here how the playwright manages to use the statue to create dramatic
intensity in both the on-stage and “real” spectators. Their interest and feelings overlap
without being identical, just as the scene also exploits the difference between the characters
who view the statue as a statue, at least for a while, and the audience who are not sure at
first what they are actually staring at. Is it an actor playing the role of the statue of Hermione
or an actor playing the role of Hermione pretending to be a statue? Although for much of
the play, the audience has benefited from superior knowledge compared with the
characters, at this moment, it is not the case. There is always the possibility that the
dramatist is misleading the audience; as in the famous Dover cliff scene in King Lear when
the audience is not immediately aware that what they are witnessing is actually a
performance. While the audience is trying to decide on what they are watching, they will
also be carefully observing how the on-stage watchers react to it, noting the ambivalence of
the responses aroused by the presence of this life-like figure. At the same time, their
attention to details will, in all probability, focus on the skill of the actor/actress and her
ability to keep up the pretence of being a statue for some eighty lines of dialogue. All the
6
characters’ remarks on the skill of the artist (65-68), although untrue if we apply them to the
sculptor said to have produced the work of art, are actually true if applied to the skill of the
actor/actress playing the role, again showing how Shakespeare uses the double audience to
great effect. Granville-Barker noted this double perspective and his words, although directly
concerning Cymbeline also apply to The Winter’s Tale: “And throughout the whole elaborate
scene of revelation with which the play ends we are most artfully steered between illusion
and enjoyment of the ingenuity of the thing” (quoted in Blanc, 349).
In a play in which spectatorship is often a central issue, as we have seen, it seems
particularly apt that the final scene should focus yet again on this question and include
examples of the different types of spectatorship we have evoked. This scene has both
intrigued and captivated generations of scholars, critics, actors and theatre-goers (although
not apparently Simon Forman who produced the first written account of a performance at
the Globe, an oversight which has fuelled speculation that the play he saw did not end with
the resurrection of Hermione). The powerful effects it produces depend on the fact that the
audience is invited to both relate to the characters’ reactions and, at the same time,
experience more than this. The audience responds to the intensity of the sequence as
fiction, but also to the sequence as a specifically theatrical experience. In a comparatively
short scene (155 lines), our attention is drawn to the necessity of being attentive to words
and silence, to gesture and immobility, to objects, light and music. These elements are all
included in Paulina’s staging of Hermione’s resurrection. Marion O’Connor concludes her
discussion of the end of the play by opposing what the Jacobean spectators actually saw and
what they are led to believe they saw: “a young boy, costumed and made up as a middleaged female of high status, whom dramatic speech transformed into an inanimate object,
and then slowly, by fits and starts of perception, brought to life” 383). However, what we
may conclude from the end of The Winter’s Tale, and which can be seen as a kind of
manifesto in condensed form as to what constitutes the good spectator, is that the various
skills involved will not suffice unless the spectator is willing to put reason and rationality to
one side momentarily and succumb to the magic of the theatre, to look “with marvel” as
Paulina puts it (5.3.100). Marion O’ Connor is surely right therefore to conclude that the
relationship between words and images in the play is one of “collaboration” (383).
Ultimately, Paulina’s words to those gathered around the statue must also apply to the
spectators gathered in the theatre: “It is required/You do awake your faith” (94-95).
Susan BLATTÈS (Université Stendhal-Grenoble 3)
Références bibliographiques
BLANC, Pauline, L’univers tragi-comique du théâtre shakespearien et ses précédents sur la
scène tudor, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, 2007.
COGHILL, Neville, “Six points of stagecraft” in Kenneth Muir, ed., The Winter’s Tale: A
Casebook, London, MacMillan, 1969.
DUTTON, Richard & HOWARD, Jean E., eds., A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works: The
Poems, Problem Comedies, Late Plays, Oxford, Blackwell, 2003.
7
GURR, Andrew, Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
third edition, 2005.
HERMAN, Vimala, Dramatic Discourse: Dialogue as interaction in plays, London, Routledge,
1995.
ORGEL, Stephen, ed., The Winter’s Tale, “The Oxford Shakespeare”, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1996.
SYNDER, Susan & CURREN-AQUINO, Deborah, eds., The Winter’s Tale, “New Cambridge
Shakespeare”, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
TATSPAUGH, Patricia E., ed., The Winter’s Tale, “Shakespeare at Stratford”, London, Arden,
2002.
WARREN, Roger, Staging Shakespeare’s Late Plays, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990.
8