ABSTRACT
Shakespeare begin with a double that he think, surfaced after a long period of neglect. The 1988 season at Stratford, Ontario offered a Richard III in which Geraint Wyn Davies played King Edward IV and Richmond. As soon as the double is proposed, one sees the point: the Sick King yields to the New King, a death is followed by a rebirth. The theory of Shakespearean doubling cannot be confined to the record of stage practice. Many doubles have stage sanction; some have been tried on stage, but are obviously useless; many more doubles are theoretically feasible and reflect interesting possibilities in the text. The agent of that comedy is Autolycus, who must however be decorously absent from the final scene of The Winter's Tale. The roles of Autolycus and Leontes are plain enough, and the play's end sees the New King as the Restored King. But comedy and tragedy do not meet face to face.
