Peter Viney's Blog

Cymbeline
by William Shakespeare

Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Av=on

Friday 5th May 2023, 19.30

Directed by Gregory Doran
Designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis
Lighting design: Matt Daw
Music by Matt Enderby

CAST:

BRITAIN:
Peter de Jersey – Cymbeline, King of Britain
Amber James – Imogen, his daughter
Ed Sayer- Posthumus, Imogen’s husband
Mark Hadfield- Pisanio, his servant
Alexandra Gilbraith- The Queen, the Kings second wife
Conor Glean – Cloten, her son, The King’s stepson
Barnaby Tobias- 1st Lord, attendant on Cloten
Tom Chapman – 2nd Lord, attendant on Cloten
Jake Mann – Cornelius, a doctor
Marcia Lecky- attendant to Imogen
Cat White – attendant to Imogen
Keith Osborn – Sicilus
Marcia Lecky- mother

ROME:
Jamie Wilkes – Iachimo, an Italian nobleman
Keith Osborn – Philatio, his friend
Adam Baker- Frenchman
Iwan Bond- Spaniard
Barnaby Tobias- Dutchman
Theo Odundipe – Caius Lucius, Roman general
Jeff Alexander- Soothsayer
Adam Baker- Roman soldier 2
Iwan Bond – Roman soldier 1

WALES:
Christian Patterson – Belarius, a banished lord, now living as Morgan
Scott Gutteridge- Guiderus, raised by Belarius under the name Polydore
Daf Thomas- Arviragus, raised by Belarius under the name Cadwal

Jeff Alexander- Jupiter

MUSICIANS
Ben McQuigg – keyboard
Kevin Waterman – percussion
Nick Lee- guitars
Max Gittings- uillean pipes, flutes, whistles
Angela Whelan – trumpet, flugel horn
Ailsa Mair- cello, voice

2015/16 was the year of Cymbeline with three productions in a row. Just looking at the cast list, it’s a relief that the 2023 cast is not 50% female for a change. The year has not started well at the RSC with atypically poor productions of both The Tempest (it’s about global warming) and Julius Caesar (it’s about big oil companies), tempered by a very good Hamnet.

So now Greg Doran, the boss, the RSC Artistic Director, comes in with his 50th production for the RSC, directed by himself, and his last play before leaving. Doran has supervised the moves toward 50% women, therefore putting women in obviously male roles, and been most insistent on having disabled actors. I draw the line on that when it comes to deaf actors signing Shakespeare. It works in very minor roles, but is otherwise a travesty. Then this year we have had ridiculous external agendas forced on plays.

Guess what? His last RSC play has men as men, women as women (with the exception of the normal minor ensemble doubling), no disabled actors, no external agendas, and with elaborate historical costumes. It’s a straightforward production of a confused and confusing play, and he brings more clarity to the plot than I’ve seen in previous productions.

The play won’t fall into categories. It’s not history, in spite of naming a king (approximately) and his daughter after references in Holinshed’s Chronicles to a King Cunobelinus or Kymbeline, and name-checking Julius Caesar. The king lived in Southern England in the early years AD. It’s not a tragedy because all the good characters survive. It’s too serious to be a comedy, and decapitations aren’t funny. It’s not even a play about the semi-mythical British king Cymbeline, but rather about his daughter, Imogen. Then again, that’s probably a First Folio misprint for Innogen.

The play is long, sprawling and uneven; part fairy-tale and part Morality play, with hints of old sagas. There are patches of exquisite poetry, and thoughts as original and as beautifully expressed as anywhere in Shakespeare, there are characters as alive and wonderful as human beings may be, but there are also passages which seem to belong to an older and inferior convention, and people who appear to be mere ciphers, or vehicles for plot advancement and dramatic device.

Ian Richardson, Introduction to the Folio Society edition, 1976

The first recorded performance was 1611, but it may have been first seen up to two years earlier. Emma Smith traces some of the influences in the excellent programme. It appears to be drawn from diverse successful Shakespeare themes and characters. We have Posthumus (confusingly also called Leonatus), the jealous husband (Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, Othello). The wicked plotter who invokes his jealousy with trickery (Iago, Don John in Much Ado). We have the evil Queen plotting (Lady Macbeth). We have the ‘boasting soldier’ type (Paroles in All’s Well That Ends Well, then Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, Henry V). We have the wild outlaws in the forest (All’s Well That Ends Well, Two Gentlemen of Verona). We have the drug that induces a sleep that looks like death (Romeo & Juliet). We have the heroine needing to dress up as a man (Viola, Rosalind), we have lost children who turn up years later (Comedy of Errors, The Winters Tale), decapitations (there were a few – they must have been good at doing lookalike heads). There’s a king descending into madness (quite a few). Several of those references are within the same few years of Shakespeare’s career. Was it a medley / mash-up / greatest hits?

The production is long, as the later plays tend to be. It’s played in three parts. The first, around 75 minutes is Cymbeline’s court and Rome where Posthumus is visiting. The second at 55 minutes is hills above Milford Haven in Wales. The third, 45 minutes, is the war between the British and Romans in Wales, then back at the court. The whole ends up as three hours plus a 15 minute break after Part One, and a five minute pause after Part Two. Listening to people, I’d have had ten minutes for the second pause – long enough to safely go to the loo.

The set is a bare stage mainly – with a circle of sticks creating a cave in the Wales section. The back has an entrance in the centre that’s generally invisible. A huge lighted disc dominates and shifts colour. The music is magnificent, one that the RSC needs to put onto CD. Costumes are in three sections. The British court are in Shakespearean era clothes. The Romans are in Jacobean trousers and loose dressing gowns in the civilian scenes, but there are classic “tunics and helmets” Roman gear for the military. The wild men in the woods are in rough rural Ancient British. Three different eras, but it works.

Plot? You need to look it up. King Cymbeline is married to his second wife, here just called ‘The Queen.’ He has a daughter, Imogen. The Queen has a son by her first marriage, the oafish Cloten, They want Imogen and Cloten to marry. However, Imogen has beaten them to it, marrying a childhood friend, Posthumus.

Posthumus nips off to Rome and falls in with the international group of aristocrats. The slimy Iachimo suggests that Imogen will be unfaithful while he’s away, and then lays a bet that he can seduce her.

By trickery Iachimo hides in her bedroom in a trunk, and notes the decor carefully, steals her bangle and most importantly peeks down her nightie while she’s asleep and discovers an intimate birthmark. Posthumus flies in a rage and orders their servant Pisanio (back in Britain) to murder her.

They go off to Wales, where Pisanio reveals the plot and advises her to dress up as a boy. She meets Morgan (aka Belarius) and his two sons. They are not his sons in fact. Belarius fell out with Cymbeline 20 years earlier, stole the two little princes and brought them up as his own as Polydore and Cadwal.

They all take to Imogen (now Fidelio). She is sick from sleeping rough, but has a drug Pisanio gave her. This drug came from the Queen who told him it was a pick-you-up elixir, but it is a fatal poison. Ah, but it’s not! The doctor didn’t trust her and instead gave her the Juliet Drug which would induce a death-like sleep. Meanwhile the wicked and dumb Cloten has acquired a set of Posthumus’s clothes from Pisanio, and has followed her to Wales, intent on raping her. Cloten gets in a fight with one of Belarius’s lads and is killed and decapitated. They think Fidelio / Imogen is dead, and lay the bodies next to each other. She wakes up, sees the clothes on the headless body and assumes it’s Posthumus.

The Romans arrive.

The last part is the war, followed by probably the very longest resolution and explanation scene Shakespeare (or anyone else) has written. The battle was choreographed very well, then went into a frozen scene for most combatants while the actors at the front (Posthumus and Iachimo) had their personal battle.

The cast are all very good indeed. Not a weak one. Imogen (Amber James) and Posthumus (Ed Sayer) work as the straight parts. They necessarily get a happy ending after much hardship. Posthumus had joined the Roman trrops as a way of getting to Britain (he loses his wig and has a hair cut). He soon changes sides and joins the Britons and proves heroic. The woad the British were renowned for applying in battle was, I thought, dark blue. He uses greeny turquoise The Morgan family use black. England football fans use red, white and blue.

Alexandra Gilbraith’s Queen is very funny, with a shock of white Cruella de Ville hair at the front. Most of this is reactions rather than lines too. Scheming away. she lit up the stage.

Jamie Wilkes was the perfect Iachimo, again finding much visual comedy in reactions and expressions. The play’s comments on deceptive and distrustful Italians must have been designed to appeal to a Jacobean audience’s perceptions of Italy. In the earlier scenes of carousing in Italy, we have a Frenchman, a Spaniard and a Dutchman. It showed the extent of the Roman empire, but again was a vehicle for nationality jokes. I thought they underplayed that in this production – maybe they didn’t want to come across as Eurosceptic Brexiteers playing to the Lowest Common Denominator of prejudice. Shakespeare did, and ‘There was an Italian, a Frenchman, a Spaniard and a Dutchman …’ was a popular joke type (change the nationalities) even then. The railing against the Roman tribute being demanded would have resonated with Jacobean Protestants too (Roman church being replaced here by Roman army), but strangely at the end, Cymbeline seeks peace and agrees to pay it. This was around the time when Britain was making peace treaties with Spain, and so a deliberate reference. Cloten as the stroppy Brit may well be a Farage supporter,

Conor Glean was a distinctive Cloten, an aggressive but pouting and mincing idiot. His distinctive looks greatly aided the shock of the decapitated head.

I was impressed by Peter de Jersey’s Cymbeline – it’s not the lead role and never was, which is why Emma Rice’s 2015 Globe production retitled the play as Imogen (Shakespeare’s Cymbeline Renamed and Reclaimed) .

I was harshly critical of him as Alonso in The Tempest. His full on, full volume shouty anger didn’t gell with the style of that production. As Cymbeline, it fits perfectly. I noted that the programme starts with a picture of him in Sejanus in 2005, directed by Doran. He’s a classic old-style Shakespeare actor.

I much admired the direction. The descent of Jupiter, painted gold, from on high used the height and crane of the RSC to its full. The projection of an eagle wings effect moving behind added to the magical moment. The Elizabethans and Jacobeans were fond of elaborate tableaux, and this theatrical Jupiter would tie in with the tableaux in the Great Houses.

Throughout little aside reactions added much humour. Jake Mann’s doctor took my attention through the final resolution. He has to admit that he gave the Queen the drug, but that he had used a different one. You can see him deciding not to elaborate as Cymbeline wonders. Belarius (Christian Patterson)is equally adept at reacting to events without speaking.

There are no small parts …

Do you know those in car games where you have to name all the American states, or all the Beatles singles or all of Shakespeare’s plays? Cymbeline was my Idaho, the one I always failed to remember. Once I’d unravelled and grasped the plot, Cymbeline has grown as a play each time I’ve seen it. Both RSC productions of the last few years, though different, work well.

It’s a first rate standard interpretation. A fitting way for Greg Doran to depart the company.

****

SOUND

I could hear well. My companion uses hearing aids only in the theatre and for TV, but they failed last week, so she used the RSC headsets. They are really poor. The man next to her spent most of the play fiddling with his. She abandoned hers as she could hear better without them. When we handed them back, two people were doing the same and saying, ‘They didn’t really work.’ We’ve mentioned this before. The National’s system works. Chichester’s system works. The RSC’s is crap. I spoke to a technician at Chichester about this last year. He said, ;’We have multiple microphones and go to lots of trouble balancing them. Most theatres don’t.’ So that’s another task for Daniel Evans when he takes over next month.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

5 star
Mark Lawson, The Guardian *****

4 star
Michael Davies, What’s On Stage ****

3 star
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ***
Clive Davis, The Times ***
Quentin Letts, The Sunday Times ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

CYMBELINE
Imogen (Shakespeare’s Cymbeline Renamed and Reclaimed) (Globe 2016)
Cymbeline – RSC 2016
Cymbeline – Wanamaker Playhouse, 2015

GREGORY DORAN (Director)
Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 RSC
Henry V – Alex Hassell, RSC, 2015
Julius Caesar – RSC 2012
Richard II – RSC 2013, David Tennant as Richard II
The Witch of Edmonton by Rowley, Dekker & Ford, RSC
Death of A Salesman, by Arthur Miller, RSC 2015
King Lear  – RSC 2016
The Tempest, RSC 2016
Troilus & Cressida, RSC 2018
Measure for Measure, RSC 2019
Richard III – RSC 2022

AMBER JAMES
Troilus & Cressida, RSC 2018 (Cressida)
Dido, Queen of Carthage, RSC 2017 (Anna)
Antony & Cleopatra, RSC 2017 (Charmiane)
Titus Andronicus, RSC 2017 (goth, midwife)
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Globe tour, 2016

PETER DE JERSEY
The Tempest RSC 2023

THEO OGUNDIPE
Troilus & Cressida, RSC 2018
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Old Vic 2017
King Lear  – RSC 2016
Hamlet, RSC 2016
Julius Caesar, RSC 2012

JAMIE WILKES
Richard III – RSC 2022
The Rover by Aphra Behn, RSC 2016
The Two Noble Kinsmen, RSC, Swan Theatre, 2016
The Comedy of Errors, Globe 2014 (Dromio)
Titus Andronicus Globe 2014
The Shoemaker’s Holiday, RSC, 2015 (Hammon)

ALEXANDRA GILBRAITH
The Provoked Wife, RSC 2019
The Lie, Menier Chocolate Factory, 2017
The Rover, RSC 2016 (Bianca)
The Merry Wives of Windsor, RSC 2012 (Mistress Ford)

MARK HADFIELD
Tamburlaine, RSC 2018
Richard III, Almeida,2016
The Painkiller, Branagh Season 2016
Jeeves & Wooster  in Perfect Nonsense (original production, 2013)

CONOR GLEAN
Richard III – RSC 2022
Henry VI- Wars of The Roses, RSC 2022
Henry VI- Rebellion, RSC 2022

JAKE MANN
King Lear, McKellen, Chichester 2017
Titus Andronicus, Globe 2014

KEITH OSBORN
Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 RSC
Henry V – Alex Hassell, RSC, 2015