SOURCE: Clapp, Susannah. “Spliffs and Butts.” Observer (27 May 2001): 13.

In the following excerpt, Clapp admires Nicholas Hytner's 2001 modern-dress staging of The Winter's Tale at London's National Theatre. According to the critic, Hytner's contemporary interpretation was underscored by a striking thematic contrast between the monochrome, bureaucratic Sicilian court and the anti-establishment Bohemia.

Nicholas Hytner has been widely talked of as a contender for the directorship of the National Theatre. His production of The Winter's Tale should boost his chances. It's a dashing, illuminating occasion which deals boldly with the play's swoops from misery to merriment. It's enough to give modern-dress Shakespeare a good name.

The Winter's Tale used to be considered a ‘problem’ play, but that hasn't deterred recent directors: Hytner's is the fifth production I've seen in four years. Consciousness of the millennium may have given lustre to this account of a new golden era being bred out of...