While its jam-packed action and ever-shifting genre has sometimes given Cymbeline a reputation as a difficult play to stage or follow, everything is crystal clear in director Esther Jun’s staging on the Tom Patterson Theatre.David Hou/Supplied
- Title: Cymbeline
- Written by: William Shakespeare
- Director: Esther Jun
- Actors: Allison Edwards-Crewe, Tyrone Savage
- Company: Stratford Festival
- Venue: Tom Patterson Theatre
- City: Stratford, Ont.
- Year: Runs to Sept. 28
Critic’s Pick
Cymbeline, now getting a divinely inspired production at the Stratford Festival, is the everything bagel of Shakespeare’s canon.
This late play of the Bard’s, a fairy tale-inflected tragicomedy, has a little Lear, an iota of Othello and just a titch of Titus Andronicus in it. It features a young woman who disguises herself as a boy (take your pick of previous plays in which that occurs) and a potion that helps this star-crossed lover fake her death (ahem, you know).
On top of all that, Cymbeline’s a kind of history play, too, telling a tale of an ancient British ruler who rose up against a Caesar (not that one) and his Roman empire.
While its jam-packed action and ever-shifting genre has sometimes given Cymbeline a reputation as a difficult play to stage or follow, everything is crystal clear in director Esther Jun’s staging on the Tom Patterson Theatre.
Jun has the bright idea of beginning things by having all the actors line up on the stage in character, and freezing them like statues. She then has the soothsayer, Philarmonous (Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks), walk among them with the god, Jupiter (Marcus Nance), pointing out who is who and explaining what each person’s backstory is.
Philarmonous and Jupiter, who normally crop up later on, speak dialogue here that Shakespeare originally put in the mouths of two unnamed gentleman. But Jun’s repurposing of the lines is both elegant and immediately sets a fantasy tone for her production, which features a sacred tree that glows green designed by Echo Zhou as its centrepiece. Her opening scene, too, makes the play’s eventual shift from the human world to other planes of existence where the dead and deities get involved seem natural, rather than jarring.
To try my hand at a coherent recap of Cymbeline: The ancient British princess, Innogen (Allison Edwards-Crewe), has married Posthumus Leonatus (Jordin Hall), a man who her mother, queen Cymbeline (Lucy Peacock; the role has switched sex), believes is beneath her station.
And so, Posthumus is banished to Rome. There, he meets a slippery fellow named Iachimo (Tyrone Savage) – very similar to another misogynist manipulator whose name starts with the same vowels – who says women aren’t to be trusted and bets Posthumus that he can seduce his virtuous wife on a coming trip to Britain.
Meanwhile, back in the British court, the Duke (Rick Roberts), the queen’s consort, is plotting to marry his vain son, Cloten (Christopher Allen), to Innogen in order to cement his hold on power.
This evil stepfather – another sex-swapped character – purchases a vial of poison that he gives to Posthumus’s right-hand woman, Pisanio (Irene Poole), telling her it is a potent healing medicine.
What neither of them knows is that the doctor, Cornelius (a wry Wahsonti:io Kirby), actually sold the Duke a Romeo and Juliet-esque sleeping potion.
“I do not like him,” Cornelius says matter-of-factly, explaining why he deceived the Duke. This is one of a number asides that Zhou, lighting designer as well as the set designer, frames in a short, sharp spotlight to amusing effect.
In addition to Rome and Britain, Cymbeline also has some action that takes place in Wales, where two wild young men (Michael Wamara and Noah Beemer) live with their father Belarius (Jonathan Goad) in a cave.
Thanks to Jun’s scene setting, we know right away these wild-men are in fact Cymbeline’s sons – and Innogen’s brothers – stolen from the court at a young age.
How all the plot lines intersect – who beds who; who beheads who – I leave for audiences who don’t know the play to discover and be delighted and disgusted by.
But what makes Jun’s production appealing, beyond its superb storytelling, is a fresh approach to acting where the performers are allowed to occasionally insert an anachronistic gesture or line delivery to connect this ancient world with now.
The Duke gives Pisanio the two-finger, “I’ve got my eyes on you” signal, while Posthumus puts on a Barry White voice as he gives Innogen a special bracelet he dubs his “manacle of love.” These are like little pleasurable portholes to the present.
Under Jun’s direction, Cymbeline’s cast feels like a real ensemble – with every actor given a chance to shine and show something new – but I must single out Allen, making his Stratford debut, for his highly original and marvellous vain portrayal of Cloten. He is aided by a wig with hilarious bangs that he is constantly batting out of his face.
The enlivening design details continue in the sumptuous costumes made by Michelle Bohn, which seem to have whole histories embroidered into them.
A last element of Cymbeline that is familiar from other Shakespeare plays is a final scene where the characters all congregate on the stage once more and reveal things to each other that the audience already knows: who thought alive is now dead, who thought dead is actually alive and so on.
Rather than trying to speed through this scene, as a director might be tempted, Jun actually slows the action down, allowing each revelation a moment for emotional impact. This approach reveals the conclusion to be not an unnecessary wrapping up for those who weren’t paying attention, but a symphony of forgiveness.
With each reconciliation and each pardon, it becomes more and more moving. I found myself, unexpectedly, in tears.