[In part 5 of Kirk Woodward’s series “Re-Reading Shaw,” which
I posted on ROT on 2 September, he introduces a short piece
called “Cymbeline Refinished” from 1937. According to Kirk, Shaw “wrote an alternate
ending [to Shakespeare’s play] that does not require unusual staging.” Since Shaw rewrote William Shakespeare’s
ending for Cymebline , I thought I might use that as an excuse to
post my “archival” review of New York Shakespeare Festival’s production
(directed in 1989 by JoAnne Akalaitis, Joseph Papp’s successor, as part of the
NYSF’s multi-year Shakespeare Marathon).
[The following reviews were published together in the New York Native of 19 June 1989. The Native ran reviews in pairs, so there are two plays in
the column. (The paper gave me so many words for both
plays, but I could divide them up any way I wanted.) I saw the New York Shakespeare
Festival/Public Theater’s Cymbeline, which
ran between 9 May and 25 June 1989,
in May and the Circle Repertory Company’s Florida Crackers, 17 May-25 June, in June.
Even though the Florida Crackers
review is totally unrelated to Cymbeline
or Shaw, I’m leaving the two co-published pieces together here because . . .
well, that’s the way they appeared in print 27 years ago.]
CYMBELINE
by William
Shakespeare
New York
Shakespeare Festival
Public
Theater/Newman Theater
The ninth production in Joe Papp’s
Shakespeare Marathon, Cymbeline
certainly has elements of a gothic romance: twisted plots, separated lovers,
lost and stolen children, disguises, poisons and potions, and ghosts. A plot too complex to synopsize here—the
program includes a page-and-a-half précis—it befits opera or all-day
Kabuki. It seems appropriate, therefore,
that JoAnne Akalaitis sets her production in the mid-nineteenth century of
Dickens, Austen, and Poe. The final
scene, with the entire cast unraveling the dozen or so complications, outstrips
Gilbert and Sullivan.
The shadowy, often fog-shrouded
production, on George Tsypin’s chameleon set moodily dance-lit by Pat Collins,
is over three hours long, but has such verve and energy it seems only half
that. The gothic ambience is enhanced by
Philip Glass’s score of romantic viola with percussive counterpoint.
Sounds of a thunderstorm establish the
atmosphere about fifteen minutes before curtain. (Perhaps it was the air-conditioning, but I
actually began to feel chilly.) Then,
two gentlemen complete with umbrellas step through the curtains and fill us in
on the marriage of King Cymbeline’s daughter, Imogen, to impoverished
Posthumus; the latter’s banishment to Italy, and the mysterious disappearance
of Cymbeline’s two sons. The curtain
opens on “Celtic ruins” covered by heavy ground fog, lit sparsely from above
and the sides. Two large, square columns
are center stage, the floor is covered with runic drawings and a
Stonehenge-like ruin is projected on the backdrop.
Scenes in England, Italy and Wales are
quickly created by new configurations of the columns and new projections of
forests, caves, walls and interiors—even a rippling stream. The projections, black- or sepia-and-white,
are unspecific, often fragmentary, and, combined with the shadowy lighting,
evoke impressions rather than literal pictures.
In this way, Tsypin’s set accommodates the swiftness of Akalaitis’s
direction, which moves the production without turning it into a headlong
rush.
The brooding elements, though
constant, still permit Akalaitis occasional whimsy. Twice, for instance, Cymbeline (George
Bartenieff) on his throne is flown onstage from the wings, and Iachimo,
gathering false evidence of Imogen’s seduction, peeks shyly down the sleeping
princess’s bodice. Broader humor is
generated by Cloten, the Queen’s oafish son, played by a chubby Wendell
Pierce. His physical appearance,
accentuated by an absurd page-boy mop of hair and outlandish clothes of
clashing patterns and colors, belies the earnestness with which Pierce plays
his lust for Imogen and his thirst for revenge on Posthumus. The contrast, occasionally off-putting—especially
when Pierce tries too hard—is often hilarious.
There is also considerable charm in
the performances of Joan Cusack as Imogen, Jeffrey Nordling as Posthumus, Peter
Francis James as Posthumus’ loyal servant Pisanio, Michael Cumpsty (who here
resembles Robert Goulet or the late Guy Williams, TV’s Zorro) as the oily
Iachimo, Frederick Neumann as the wrongly banished Belarius, and Jesse Borrego
and Don Cheadle as Cymbeline’s long-lost sons Polydore and Cadwal. These last two, it must be added, display
virtuosic acrobatics in their several fights, and, as feral innocents, may be
the most confused characters in the convoluted circumstances, for they fall
naïvely in love with Imogen, disguised as a boy, not knowing that she is a
woman, a princess and their sister. The
audience clearly appreciated Borrego’s and Cheadle’s performances, for their
curtain call received the loudest applause.
Cusack is strong and stalwart, though
her voice has a hoarseness that precludes much vocal variety despite the
obvious emotional variety the actress commands.
Still, I found her more forceful and sympathetic here than in her last
New York appearance, Circle Rep’s Brilliant
Traces. Joan MacIntosh’s Queen, a
sort of Junior League Lady Macbeth crossed with a real-life version of Snow
White’s queen, would be easy to caricature as a dragon lady, but MacIntosh and
Akalaitis keep to a believable level of evil.
Cumpsty’s unctuous smarminess as
Iachimo, a sleaze if ever there was one, is clear without being
telegraphed. As a rake, he presses
Imogen, importunes her fervently and then backs off quickly when she refuses
him. Having snuck into her bedroom while
she is asleep, Cumpsty peeps down her nightgown with puerile glee, showing what
a little boy this poseur really is.
Without this detail, the audience probably couldn’t forgive him, as
Imogen and Posthumus do, for the near tragedy he causes.
Among the production’s remarkable
moments is a choreographed battle with stylized individual combat, a
slow-motion mass attack—and a leap by Borrego from a ten-foot-high ramp into a
crowd of enemy soldiers. Later, there is
a literal deus ex machina as Jupiter,
in the guise of boy alto Jacob White, sings an aria suspended on a giant
bird.
As steadily as it keeps its many balls
in the air, Akalaitis’s Cymbeline is
not without problems, however. Whimsical
as it is, the flying throne comes, literally and dramatically, out of
nowhere. And the good performances
aside, it is momentarily troublesome that Cymbeline and his first queen should
have a white daughter, a black son and an Hispanic son. More difficult to accept is that Imogen,
awakening from a drugged, death-like sleep, would mistake the headless corpse
of Cloten, a stout black man, for her husband, a tall, slim white man. (Cloten was wearing Posthumus’ clothes, but
rather than explaining the confusion, that only raises the question how the
tubby prince could fit into them.) Also,
the director includes Posthumus’ ghostly family, who appear to him in a dream
shimmering like translucent holograms, in other scenes throughout the play, as
if they are silently watching over the events of the story. This presence seems unnecessary; however,
like Akalaitis’s other inventions, it doesn’t ultimately harm the
production.
As the audience left, one spectator
concluded that Cymbeline is the
strongest entry so far in the Marathon.
I can’t necessarily go along with the exclusivity—James Lapine’s Winter’s Tale still stands out for the
acting and individual character portrayals—but Akalaitis has unquestionably put
together a marvelously atmospheric and theatrical spectacle.
FLORIDA CRACKERS
by Wm. S.
Leavengood
Circle Repertory Company
There is a public service TV
commercial that shows two young men sitting around a bedroom smoking pot. One says he doesn’t believe marijuana is
dangerous; after all, they’ve smoked it since they were twelve and nothing’s
happened to them. Then the man’s mother
asks if he’s even looked for a job that day.
“No, ma,” he answers, and the voice-over declares, “Marijuana can make
nothing happen to you, too.” That, in a
thirty-second spot, is what Wm. S. Leavengood seems to be saying over two hours
in Florida Crackers.
In John Bishop’s hyperrealistic
production, in which real eggs are cooked, real sand is spread over the Circle
rep’s stage and aisles and real barbells are bench-pressed, brothers Joe (John
C. McGinley), Grant (Michael Piontek) and Russell (Scott Rymer) essentially
dream their lives—and inheritance—away as they smoke, snort, deal, and deliver
pot and coke around St. Petersburg, Florida.
Too enervated to do anything else, they know only one way to make money
for their various pipe dreams. It’s an
unpoetic, brutish Iceman Cometh à la
1979.
The boys’ favorite song is the Eagles’
“Take It to the Limit” (1975) whose key line seems to be “I’ve always been a dreamer.” Seven scenes spread over two acts reveal the
lassitude of the brothers and their friends and lovers until they are finally
galvanized by Grant’s arrest for transporting pot. As to why these former preppies don’t break
out of their self-destructive rut, the play’s only explanation is the
description of fish caught in the deadly red tide: even though the algae will
inevitably poison or suffocate the fish, they don’t swim away because they don’t
know any better.
A talented cast, a detailed set (by
John Lee Beatty), and appropriate but uninspired direction, however, can’t make
these people interesting or worthy of sympathy.
Their lives weren’t ruined by some outside force against which we can
root for them to struggle; they are victims of their own selfishness and
inertia. They get what they deserve.
[In my commentary on Kirk Woodward’s
book The Art of Writing Reviews (Merry Press/Lulu, 2009), I related an anecdote
that pertains to my New York Native
review of Cymbeline, the one
republished here. In Part 3 of “The Art
of Writing Reviews by Kirk Woodward” (11 November
2009), I wrote that after a contretemps I had in print with John Simon, New York magazine’s drama reviewer, over The
Winter’s Tale, an earlier entry in the
NYSF marathon, my Cymbeline notice
was published.
On 19 June, however, my review of
another NYSF production, Cymbeline (part of NYSF’s then-ongoing marathon
of all Shakespeare’s plays over about a decade), came out in the Native
and unbeknownst to me, the editors had put a banner headline on the front page
of the edition saying, “Hey, John
Simon: We Loved Cymbeline.” Simon had obviously panned Cymbeline
(12 June)--it was a controversial production under the direction of JoAnne
Akalaitis--but the banner was clearly more directed at my difference of opinion
with Simon over Winter’s Tale.
[In
a later section of my comments, I quoted Kirk’s statement that “reviewers often
are not responsible for headlines” and other accompaniments to their
columns. Though most of my reviews did
appear under headlines of my own devising, I not only had no hand in writing that banner
about Cymbeline that
baited John Simon, but I didn’t even know about it until the issue came
out. Since my deadline was often 10 days
before the issue date, I’d written my copy before Simon’s negative review of Cymbeline
hit the stands. (I no longer subscribed
to New York and didn’t seek out Simon’s reviews anyway; I wouldn’t have
known about his response to the play until someone told me about it.)]
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