Re-reading Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale! This play is of note among Shakespeare’s canon because of how different it is. Case in point is act 4 scene 1, in which Father Time suddenly walks onto the stage.
This scene is simple enough on the surface. It’d be easy enough to put up a title card that says “Sixteen years later,” but this is Shakespeare, so we’re kicking it up a bit. A character identified as “Time” comes on stage to discuss his nature, and then he tells us sixteen years has passed. He tells us we’re leaving Leontes behind (but not really) and entering Bohemia. He introduces to Polixenes’ son Florizell, and re-introduces us to Perdita, who has been raised by the Shepherd of the previous scene. That’s about it, but the scene still gives us a lot to deal with.
Many editions of the play name Time as the chorus. Lots of Shakespeare plays have a chorus acting as narrator. Everybody has a different idea as to what the chorus was and how it was played traditionally, and there’s even more modern interpretations – far too many to list here. Normally, it’s one actor making the chorus into a character. Sometimes you see the main cast take this narration role, with each actor doing a line at a time. I’ve never seen someone attempt this as the classic Greek chorus where everyone’s in big masks speaking in unison, but I’ll bet somebody’s done it somewhere.
But the Chorus in The Winter’s Tale is no mere chorus, it’s Time. This is certainly a choice. Time starts this speech by talking about the nature of his existence, saying he pleases and tries all. The footnotes say “try” means to test in this sense, but I don’t see why it can’t also mean that Time samples all things as well. Time further says that all laws, customs, and the “ancient’st order” are under his power. In other words, all laws and customs, no matter how strict, eventually answer to time. But Time is a kindly figure, asking the audience’s allowance as he feels his story pales in comparison to the present in which the audience lives.
Shakespeare doesn’t use the phrase “Father Time,” although the footnotes in all my books do. We’ve all seen the images of Father Time, usually around New Year. It’s an old man, usually holding an hourglass or a clock, sometimes with wing (as in “time flies”) and sometimes with a scythe, crossing over with the Grim Reaper. Time in The Winter’s Tale mentions both wings and an hourglass, so the costumers can go nuts with costumes and props. When Time mentions Florizell and Perdita, it would be easy enough to have them appear on stage or on screen, so the audience identifies with them.
The origins of Father Time are murky, though they seem to come from Cronos, the Greek god of time. Cronos is more often associated with harvest time and autumn than with our modern-day New Year, but The Winter’s Tale productions often depict this part of the story transforming from winter to spring, so that works.
Are there other options to portray this character besides the classic Father Time or a generic narrator? If we’re going to put Pythia, a.k.a. the Oracle of Delphi, on stage as time, then maybe she could double as Time. Remember Archidamus, who we met in act 1 scene 1, who offered some exposition and never appeared again? What if he was Time all along? What about that unnamed Lord who followed Leontes around? What if he was Time? If we’re going huge with a far-out epic fantasy retelling, than Time could be any sort of otherworldly wizard, or creature, or god.
Also, this speech is written entirely in rhyme. Everybody has an opinion about how rhyming dialogue should be performed. A lot of drama teachers tell students not to make it sound like rhyme, to the point where word emphasis gets out of whack so all rhyming words are downplayed. Other actors and directors lean into the rhymes in the hopes of giving these lines a sing-song feel. If you ask me, there’s no right answer. The director and actor should sit down with the text and try a bunch of different approaches until they find what works for them.
Time ends the scene by promising not to make prophecy. He then leaves a blessing with the audience, telling them that if they never have a bad time, he hopes they never do.
Next: You can’t go home again.
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