CYMBELINE by Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Globe.

London

CYMBELINE
by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's Globe In rep to 23 September 2001.
Runs 3hrs 25mins One interval
TICKETS 020 7401 9919/ 020 7316 4703
Review Timothy Ramsden 21 August

Small is beautiful at the great Globe.

Cymbeline appeared in 1610. A couple of years later Shakespeare gave up the theatre. Writing this play may have helped him decide. The dramatist who had created a series of major comic and tragic characters might well have felt repelled by the dumbed down airy fantasies forced on him by the new wave of trendy writers.
Fortunately, in The Winter's Tale and The Tempest Shakespeare was to find ways of controlling his potentially sprawling narratives through time and place respectively. But Cymbeline scatters its improbabilities unchannelled.
There can be few directors so suited as Mike Alfreds to taking on the play. In the '70s and '80s with his company Shared Experience he explored a storytelling style that introduced description as well as dialogue into dramatised novels. Huge canvasses hold no fear for him.In Cymbeline, his actors begin by announcing the multiple parts they will be playing. Later they speak the major stage directions. There's no way we can remember details but these devices introduce and reinforce the ensemble playing.
As in his Shared Experience days, there is a small cast, six actors plus two musicians, wearing neutral costumes. Alfreds directed Cymbeline with Shared Experience and while the tighter indoor conditions helped focus attention with no individualised costumes or sets, the method takes well to the Globe.
Adopting this style, instead of realism, it's possible to see how opening expositions (the longest is in The Tempest) need not be tedious but can enthral as they draw us into events.
It's a strong cast. But stars will out, and Mark Rylance is especially fine, making the dimwitted royal bully Cloten amusing yet sympathetic. His strutting and his violence, generally going for an enemy's finger or toe, shows a childish vulnerability that makes his death a sad plot necessity.

Ensemble Cast: Jane Arnfield, Richard Hope, Fergus O' Donnell, John Ramm, Mark Rylance, Abigail Thaw
Musicians: Irita Kutchmy, Gillian McDonagh

Master of Play: Mike Alfreds
Master of Clothing and Properties: Jenny Tiramani
Master of Music: Claire van Kampen
Master of Movement: Glynn MacDonald

2001-08-22 02:09:51