Cymbeline (review)

"You're a right tease, you are. You fruity little kitten. You saucy mucky moo. You dirty girl you! Go on. Suck my toes." It was around this point that members of the Stratford-upon-Avon audience began walking out of Emma Rice's adaptation of Cymbeline, at least during the performance I attended. If the choric introduction by a man in drag called Joan and the plastic Queen feeding an exhausted Cymbeline pills and drugs hadn't been too much, then Cloten's verbal abuse of Imogen was.

In the RSC's 2006 - 2007 Complete Works Festival, the words of Shakespeare became a source of contention. Plenty of translated texts were staged, but following the negative reaction to Münchner Kammerspiele's tremendous but inflammatory Othello, all surtitles took their words from Shakespeare. Kneehigh's Cymbeline, despite being in English, thus made an even more decisive break from the Shakespearean text, with its modern Cornish dialect.

Perhaps it was irreverence that caused the walkouts. Carl Grose's screamingly funny script poked fun at Shakespeare: Imogen, misreading Posthumus's letter, cried in frustration "I can't even PLAY the trumpet!" From a Jupiter who spoke in Norwegian to a Roman Emperor who appeared as a two-dimensional portrait with alternating "benign" and "angry" expressions, the production was consistent in the inconsistency of its visual and verbal humor, and in the sheer noise it created.

The production's frank physicality and sexuality made this a somewhat grubby "romance." Iachimo's invasion of Imogen's bedchamber was both funny and disturbing as he crept around and then manhandled her, stealing her watch only with extreme difficulty. Cloten, thoroughly a mummy's boy, gave his mother a long kiss in gratitude following her advice to spike Imogen's drink, and later physically forced a confession from the female Pisanio. An interlude featuring Posthumus dancing with dragged-up Italian prostitutes prompted another wave of walkouts.

Yet even stripped of most of the Folio text, Shakespeare's play survived. Carl Grose's sing-song poetry, the cross-dressing and the frequent direct address were sometimes reminiscent of pantomime, sometimes of simple folk storytelling. Cymbeline became myth rather than history, and drew on the childlike simplicity of stories such as Hansel and Gretel for its emotional resonance. In the opening scene, a chorus built shrines to a multitude of lost children, with teddy bears, flowers, and Polaroid photographs. The theme of childhood was echoed in the program notes, where each cast member provided a picture from his or her own childhood. Beneath the silly jokes lurked a desperately sad play that appealed to fundamental feelings of loss, nostalgia, and broken bonds. As a result, the climax—which saw Cymbeline tucking his rescued children into bed—felt fitting, the restoration of family prioritized over the reunion of lovers.

Any production that can prompt both walkouts and standing ovations deserves to be included in a review of the best and worst productions of the decade; and the production's ongoing influence is testament to its importance. In reclaiming and reinventing Cymbeline, Kneehigh also set a new bar for the contemporization of Shakespeare on the Stratford stage. This was no travesty, but one of the most evocative retellings of Shakespeare in some years.