The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.0511  Monday, 17 March 2003

[1]     From:   Brian Willis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 14 Mar 2003 15:05:31 -0800 (PST)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 14.0498 Re: WT - Act V scene 2

[2]     From:   Matthew Baynham <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 17 Mar 2003 08:16:10 -0000
        Subj:   Winter's Tale


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Brian Willis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 14 Mar 2003 15:05:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: 14.0498 Re: WT - Act V scene 2
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.0498 Re: WT - Act V scene 2

Perhaps part of the reason the finale of Cymbeline has such potential
for comedy is that all of the recognitions and epiphanies, except for
the announcement of the death of the queen, are known to the audience.
Within about 20 minutes, around fifteen major revelations are made which
the characters are figuring out for themselves far after the audience.
It has the opposite effect of a mystery, quite a comic catharsis. The
only line that gets me (and many others) every time is the "hang there
like fruit my soul and die" line. It seems like the whole play
gravitates towards that line.

Brian Willis

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Matthew Baynham <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 17 Mar 2003 08:16:10 -0000
Subject:        Winter's Tale

I had a similar experience to Ed Pixley's when I took my teenage sons to
see Winter's Tale; but a few months later I also attended a Hamlet at
the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds and heard my adult neighbours
asking, in the interval, 'Does he die in the end?' I realised that more
people don't know the endings than I might imagine.

Matthew Baynham

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