Cymbeline

Cafe Society
1

I found this splash line amusing in the trailer for the new movie Cymbeline starring Ed Harris.

See Shakespeare’s undiscovered masterpiece!

We should be so grateful to the team of Hollywood Shakespearean scholars who labored to unearth this long-forgotten play. :slight_smile:

You can see the thought-process behind this: I’ve never heard of this play so nobody has heard of it, because I’m such an intelligent and well-read fellow.

It’s a great play actually with one of the great Shakespearean villains, “the yellow Iachimo”, and one of his most touching (and brave) heroines, Imogen. It also contains a line that never fails to bring a lump to my throat. It’s from the last act, when all is being resolved. Imogen and Postumus, her husband, are re-united after he’d supposed her dead. He is understandably nervous about the meeting as the last time he’d seen her he’d whacked her around the head and called her a cheap whore (Iachimo’s machinations, of course).

Postumus gingerly approaches, unsure how she’ll react. Imogen rushes forward and throws her arms around his neck. Postumus then says ecstatically:

Hang there like fruit, my soul, till the tree die.

That scene does it to me every time. God, that man could write!

The movie trailer doesn’t look promising, to say the least. Shame, I really like Ed Harris.

2

Man, they’re just finding new Shakes everywhere nowadays!

Seriously tho, a good three quarters of the man’s plays are essentially “undiscoved” to the supermajority of regular peoples. Cymbeline (despite my personal love) falls squarely into the “huh? Shakespeare?” category.

Personal anecdote time: I got to visit the RSC in college, and did a table reading of Cymbeline with my classmates and a decent few RSC greats, including a well known and extremely well regarded director. I was ‘cast’ as Imogen, and he read for Iachimo, while another notable RSC actor (who I might have had a teensy smidgen of a schoolgirl crush on) read for Postumus/Cloten.

Trial by freaking fire, y’all. I nearly died during that table read. I was sheltered, southern, I’d read the play, of course, but never seen or heard it, and I had never had a boyfriend at this point. I’d never actually KISSED anyone romantically at this point in my life.

Not a shock to you, I’m sure, but old Shakes is dirty. Nasty puns and innuendo and double entendres and the whole nine yards, and those RSC greats played it to the hilt. I KNEW the lines were in there, but it’s much more intense when great classically-trained director & actor (sitting on either side of me, of course) are leering lecherously and staring longlingly at a person. I don’t think I have ever in my life blushed and stammered as much as that one long night.

By the end of it, I wanted to crawl under the table and die alone, but they were kind to us all and the director said that he was quite taken with my ‘interpretation’ of Imogen as a sheltered naif with a quick wit. (Not an interpretation, mister, but thanks for the kindness!)

So I’ll always have a soft spot for Cymbeline, regardless of the actual quality of the play or production.

3

Thank you for the response, Lasciel, I was beginning to feel rather isolated! There are few things more disheartening than to watch one of your threads sink like a stone down through the pages with not a solitary reply.

And what a great anecdote! Cloten really is a dirtbag and it’s a role that an actor can sink his teeth into with relish. Eric Partridge did a whole book on Shakespeare’s Bawdy and although he tended to over-egg the pudding, seeing an innuendo under every bush so to speak, he certainly had a lot to work with.

Shakespeare, of course, was merely continuing a great tradition with his love of a dirty joke or bawdy pun. Chaucer, Boccaccio, Rabelais (hoo boy, Rabelais!), to say nothing of those old Romans Catullus and Martial, who I swear made my hair curl overnight when I first read them. :slight_smile:

4

Cymbeline is the first Shakespeare play I ever saw performed live, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2013. I also saw a modern take on King Lear (Goneril and Regan were dressed up Southern Belles and Cordelia was a stereotypical high school goth girl. It worked perfectly.) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream taking place in a Catholic high school c. 1964 (the forest seduction scenes were hilarious—Catholic schoolgirls getting felt up in a Shakespeare play). Despite Lear and AMND being much more well known, Cymbeline was my favorite.

I wasn’t aware of the film. I may have to check it out, despite it looking terrible.

5

Don’t base whether you want to see any movie of any kind on the trailer. They are often totally misleading.