Last week we went to see Sam Mendes's production of The Winter's Tale at The Old Vic. Such an odd play, so artificial, with the abrupt onset of jealousy and sexual disgust; the figure of Old Father Time to announce, at the end of Act 1, that 16 years had now passed; the division of the play into two distinct parts - the first a sombre and agonised atomisation of jealousy set at the court of Leontes, the second a light-filled and redemptive celebration of love and forgiveness. I'd read the play long ago and seen it only once, also long ago. Was it simply because this production was so beautiful, clear, impeccably acted and outstandingly designed, that it moved me so much more this time? Or was it because I am older now, a parent myself watching a play about lost mothers and lost daughters, and the passing of time is so much more haunting. The moment when Hermione steps down from the plinth where she has been standing posed as a statue and reaches out her hand for her husband who wronged her years ago filled my eyes with tears. Some works of art seem made for people who have left their youth behind them and this magical late play of Shakespeare's is one. That's not a small consolation for growing older: the places in your imagination that you can finally reach....
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