I'm not sure if it was the distractions of the season or something about the play itself, but I found it hard to follow the story in any detail as I was reading this. I definitely remember "doing" this one in English class at school, but don't recall much of the story from then either. A cursory scan of the notes (Arden Shakespeare edition) point to the play being a retelling, in some parts almost verbatim, of a romance story available in print at the time of writing called Pandosto.
Being so aware as I was reading that I wasn't really following the plot isn't necessarily a bad thing - as with every Shakespeare play I will revisit it later, hopefully at least once on stage, and what bits of the notes I read have me interested in learning more. As for what I did follow, There's a complicated story of a family split apart by jealousy, forbidden love, episodes of "rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated" and an eventual scene of reconciliation where everyone gets their happy ending. The plot skeleton isn't all that far removed from that of Cymbeline when broken down like that, and I've seen multiple references to many of his latter plays having a certain flavour.
I think I'd probably be remiss in writing a review of The Winter's Tale without mentioning that infamous stage direction involving a man rather suddenly (and conveniently, to the plot), being chased down and eaten by a bear. I suspect that the original story might have provided a little more explanation, or at least may have established that the area might be populated by bears. There's also the point that in Shakespeare's time bear baiting was a public spectacle almost as popular as the theatre, at least when he was starting out. There were several venues that actually hosted both, so it's not entirely impossible that they may have been able to get a real bear on stage.
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