Cymbeline at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review: a bold and vivid version of a Shakespeare deep cut
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This rarely-staged late Shakespearean romance gets a bold, vivid production from Jennifer Tang that matches its hectic mix of comedy, horror and absurdity. King Cymbeline here becomes a Queen (Martina Laird) of a Gaia-worshipping matriarchy. The commoner Posthumus (Nadi Kemp-Sayfi), for whom her daughter Innogen (Gabrielle Brooks) undergoes traducement and torment, is also a warlike woman.
This sharpens the fevered misogyny of the men who covet Innogen and despise Posthumus, and the agents of Imperial Rome who want to subjugate Cymbeline’s Britain. An ambient soundtrack of ululations, yelps, bongs and clicks from a trio of sternly hieratic musicians in the gallery further underlines that we are in a strange, arcane world. So too do the hammered silver moon behind them, and the runic white shapes on the main stage back wall that look like bones.
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Shakespeare supposedly delivered Cymbeline in 1610 when London’s playhouses reopened after plague-induced closure, and it feels like he chucked everything at it. Characters swap gender and allegiance and go from undying faith to murderous jealousy in a flash. There are kidnapped royal twins, mysterious potions and endless mistaken identities, one involving a headless corpse.
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But Cymbeline also features some ravishing poetry, from Innogen’s “O for a horse with wings” speech to the mournful song “Fear no more the heat of the sun”, plus the first recorded use of the word “clot-poll”. Still, the revelations and resolutions in the final scene come so thick and fast you can almost feel Shakespeare snorting at his own audacity.
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