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Directors either tend to throw everything they have at it in order to wrangle it into submission, a "more is less" attack that rarely pays the desired dividends, or swing in the opposite direction (ą la Fiasco Theater's mounting several years ago) in hopes that the entertainment value of staring down an irresistible force will somehow make the pieces interlock. Though Daniel Sullivan unquestionably leans toward the latter approach with his production at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park for The Public Theater, he keeps things middle-of-the-road enough that never do you feel you're watching a show about a show. No, for Sullivan and his crack nine-person cast, led by Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater, the play is always the thing. And though a play this troubled guarantees some iffy results, you get a lot more good than you do bad. Sullivan uses Riccardo Hernandez's set to highlight the theatrical absurdity of it all. There's a faux proscenium on the performing platform, lined with trunks. Audience seating is located just below this false "stage," where Delacorte patrons get an up-close-and-personal eyeful (and sometimes more) as the silliness unfolds. And the self-consciously two-dimensional scenic pieces flanking the space (a tank on one side, a man on horseback on the other) highlight the inherent staginess of what's at stake; the mixed-era costumes (by David Zinn), lights (David Lander), and superb now-meets-then score (by Tom Kitt, of next to normal) further the quasi-Brechtian effect. When you're forever at this sort of universally acknowledged distance, most of what happens during the fully three-hour evening is easier to swallow than it might otherwise be—and there's a lot to swallow. The titular king is outraged at his daughter, Imogen, marrying the common Posthumus; Cymbeline's wife, the Queen, wants to set Imogen up with her son from a previous marriage, Cloten, and separates Imogen and Posthumus to make it happen.
The second half, which tests the play's tragic bona fides with a sword battle of questionable necessity, is almost pure, untethered craziness lodged at some imaginary junction of Othello, As You Like It, and The Winter's Tale (which was Shakespeare's next, and in some ways even more bizarre, effort), and Shaw was not wrong about how far it stretches credibility. That everything ends not only resolves but happily would seem to fly in the face of logic, but, as usual with Shakespeare, its artfulness and good nature leave you accepting it even if every working synapse in your brain argues against it. So relentlessly clear is Sullivan's spin on the insanity, in fact, that despite almost every actor playing two or more roles, you do not get confused. Though Linklater takes on both Posthumus and Cloten, the actor's regal take on the former and "surfer-dude" take on the latter establish a firm divide between them, and highlights their shared parentage and similar effects on Imogen. Kate Burton is a deliciously but gently scheming Queen, and later shows up in the guise of the banished lord Belarius to make some fascinating comments about the nature and impact of womanhood on men who can only claim to understand it. Even Patrick Page finds fascinating links between two thankless roles: Cymbeline and Philario, who hosts Posthumus after he's forced out of Britain. But everyone is delightful, from a nightclub-tough Raśl Esparza (who scores with a fine lounge-act number from Kitt) as Iachimo and Steven Skybell as the servant Pisanio to Teagle F. Bougere as an ambassador and doctor to Jacob Ming-Trent and David Furr as would-be narrators who also fill two other crucial roles in the saga. And, per her usual, Rabe is luminous: She's a magnificently simple Imogen on the surface, but lets us see the thrilling, desperate way she wrestles with the complexities around her as the girl's situation deteriorates. Her serene anguish during the "graveyard" scene, in which Imogen must confront some terrifying truths about where she's come from and where she is, is as shudder-inducing for her sheer horror as it is heartbreaking for her loss. Rabe is a vital reminder that Shakespeare rarely fell short at writing for and about people, and even his most unhinged works will stay afloat as long as they're played with that as their focus. Sullivan falters only in the final scenes, when his focus drifts; he futzes too much with his concept, drawing attention to it rather than the writing (which is then at its most delicately convoluted), and thus comes perilously close to mocking. But for most of the evening, the rock-ribbed seriousness with which Sullivan tackles things plants him and Shakespeare are on the same creative wavelength. That's enough to ensure that, even when the script is a bit wanting, as a production this Cymbeline more than satisfies.
Cymbeline
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