With its convoluted plot, fairy-tale characters, and gory overkill, Cymbeline can easily be played as a farce. The BBC, choosing to do it straight, presents the material as ably as possible, with a sterling cast headed by Helen Mirren and Claire Bloom, unusually photogenic sets and handsome (albeit anachronistic) costumes, and some really lovely music. The production's generally high quality makes the play seem less absurd than it is.
But of course it is absurd, with its wicked stepmother and her box of poisons, its two princelings whose blood fight off a whole Roman legion, the ridiculous contrivance necessary to get Cloten into Posthumus's clothes, and the over-the-top scene where Imogen awakens next to a headless corpse that she mistakes for her husband.
Scholars tell us this is one of Shakespeare's late plays, along with The Winter's Tale, Pericles, and The Tempest. They base this opinion mainly on the known dates when these plays were performed. But nothing proves the plays were being performed for the first time. Records of Elizabethan productions are spotty at best. And all four plays have much more in common with Shakespeare's early work than with his mature efforts.
Like Titus Andronicus, Cymbeline has lurid splatters of gore and a mixed-up historical background in ancient Roman times. Like The Comedy of Errors, it has characters who serve mainly as pawns to advance the improbable plot, and a long, clumsy chunk of exposition to get things going. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, it features a climax in which the villain offers a brief apology and is instantly forgiven.
Scholars say Shakespeare reverted to this rather childish approach near the end of his life. But what writer has ever spent a lifetime learning his craft and then jettisoned all his hard-won knowledge to regress to authorial infancy?
I find it more likely that these "late" plays were written early and revived decades later to take advantage of a trend toward fantastic romances (with accompanying masques). There's a reason Ben Jonson called Pericles a "moldy tale" - moldy as in old and rotten.
Whether early or late, Cymbeline is an unpopular play that's unlikely to get a more reverential treatment than this BBC production. Everyone involved deserves high marks for doing so much with so little.
But of course it is absurd, with its wicked stepmother and her box of poisons, its two princelings whose blood fight off a whole Roman legion, the ridiculous contrivance necessary to get Cloten into Posthumus's clothes, and the over-the-top scene where Imogen awakens next to a headless corpse that she mistakes for her husband.
Scholars tell us this is one of Shakespeare's late plays, along with The Winter's Tale, Pericles, and The Tempest. They base this opinion mainly on the known dates when these plays were performed. But nothing proves the plays were being performed for the first time. Records of Elizabethan productions are spotty at best. And all four plays have much more in common with Shakespeare's early work than with his mature efforts.
Like Titus Andronicus, Cymbeline has lurid splatters of gore and a mixed-up historical background in ancient Roman times. Like The Comedy of Errors, it has characters who serve mainly as pawns to advance the improbable plot, and a long, clumsy chunk of exposition to get things going. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, it features a climax in which the villain offers a brief apology and is instantly forgiven.
Scholars say Shakespeare reverted to this rather childish approach near the end of his life. But what writer has ever spent a lifetime learning his craft and then jettisoned all his hard-won knowledge to regress to authorial infancy?
I find it more likely that these "late" plays were written early and revived decades later to take advantage of a trend toward fantastic romances (with accompanying masques). There's a reason Ben Jonson called Pericles a "moldy tale" - moldy as in old and rotten.
Whether early or late, Cymbeline is an unpopular play that's unlikely to get a more reverential treatment than this BBC production. Everyone involved deserves high marks for doing so much with so little.