CYMBELINE

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A rare production of Shakespeare`s wonderful late romance which skillfully combines menace and horror with comedy and melodrama in a moving story of two young lovers driven apart by deceit and self-doubt.

REVIEW

CYMBELINE

Fluellen Theatre Company , Grand Theatre Swansea , October 5, 2011

“Fluellen Theatre Company present Cymbeline by William Shakespeare”, said the flier. “Well”, said I, “another of the Bard’s works to tick on my “have seen” list. In forty years of theatre going I have now managed to see twenty-five different plays accredited to Shakespeare, but I had never seen Cymbeline before.

And now I have, and I am delighted that I have. The play is a little gem. Whilst no one would accuse it of being in the forefront of the Shakespeare canon it is, nonetheless, a charming romance which Fluellen does full justice to.

Staged in what may be considered a Brechtian style, the eight actors and one musician introduce the play to us via a contemporary prologue in which the characters, the themes and the background of the play are cleverly and wittily explained to the audience who are encouraged to boo the villains and cheer the hero and heroine. The play “proper” then begins with the actors taking on a vast number of roles throughout the course of the action, but always the plot remains clear.

The cast was uniformly excellent, but a few deserve special mention. Imogen, the heroine, was in the very capable hands of Bethan Johns who is as charming as the role demands but totally convincing, too, in the more emotional moments. James Scannell played her two suitors, one a hero and one a villain. He was better, I thought, in the latter role of Cloten and he brought a very real talent for comedy to the part. Robert Hopkins in the dual roles of Pisanio, Imogen`s loyal servant, and Belarius a Welsh cave dweller was superb, particularly in the latter role in which a lyrical Welsh accent served him well. Robert Surman was icily sinister as Iachimo, the scene in which he invades Imogen`s bedroom was totally gripping, and Claire Novelli made a great job of the rather one-dimensional villainous Queen, revelling in the nasty asides to the audience. It is a great shame that the character disappears so early in the play.

Peter Richards`s fluid and imaginative direction kept the momentum going well; no mean feat in a play which seems to veer off in so many directions. And a very big round of applause to Delyth Jenkins whose on-stage harp playing was so effective. She is credited with composing the original music, which was as beautiful as it was effective, particularly in the famous song “Fear no more the heat of the sun”.

I have for some time now believed that productions of Shakespeare are often best produced by small companies. Companies that don’t have the resources of the National or the RSC have to, by necessity, present plays with an economy of means that puts a priority on imagination and intelligent interpretation rather than spectacle and casts of thousands. There are many excellent companies, particularly in Wales, that provide this style of Shakespeare but none, I think, do it as consistently well as Fluellen. I have long admired their approach to Shakespeare (their production of Macbeth a few years back was one of the best I have seen) and the company deserves huge praise for bringing us this strange but compelling late Shakespeare.

Reviewed by: John Cole