(35) Cymbeline

I finished reading this play last week and was lucky enough to also catch a live performance in DC. I really liked both. I guess the main thing that struck me was how much recycled material seemed to exist in this one. So many of the same devices seen in previous plays reappear, for example, a really villainous lead character, a gender-switching disguise, an utterly innocent heroine, and a stormy transformative moment (there are more). As a result, this one came across as a bit of a retread. Is this a function of an uninspired Bard or, seasoned veteran as I am, am I just too used to him at this point (obviously, taken singly, this play would seem quite singular)? Or, is Shakespeare returning to his old stomping grounds in this late play (it was one of the last he wrote) because they are important to his art and work so well, on so many different levels? Probably.

Concerning the live performance, it was part of a two play tour I was again lucky enough to be able to do (I recently saw this one, and then saw Othello at the ASC). Both were excellent, but especially Cymbeline, where six multi-talented actors played all the parts, with an exceedingly great degree of skill. Once again, I am convinced of the obvious point that there is absolutely no substitute to seeing a live version if you really want to “get it.” You gotta see to believe.

I do have one really minor gripe about this Cymbeline production though, something that probably only bothered me, namely, that they removed my favorite lines. They are spoken right at the end by Cymbeline, when he jovially proclaims how great everything is (remember, this is a romance, not a tragedy):

Laud we the gods,
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
From our blest altars.

Isn’t that great? Unfortunately, like I said, in the production I saw (unless I missed it…which is possible), they left these lines out. No big deal of course, but just something I noticed. This happened to me one time before, right at the very beginning of this project, when I went to see Much Ado About Nothing at the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater and noticed the absence of one of my favorite lines (“No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, / nor I cannot woo in festival terms.”). I guess that’s how it goes from time to time. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that emendation happens all over the place with Shakespeare. It’s part of the game, a necessary part even, a part almost certain to disappoint someone at some point. Oh well. I guess the idea is to back up such choices with appropriate and well-considered reasoning.