#MyPlayToday... Cymbeline
First impressions of the draw: I had hoped for something a little more politically alive... In truth the current political climate had my fingers crossed for Coriolanus or Julius Caesar. But, the Gods of the Draw have decreed we won't mention that hideous B word today.
Had I read the play before? Yes
Had I seen the play before? Yes
From one oddball play to another - with a brief transatlantic adventure and a 21st birthday in between. Today's reading was the late, great, generic pick and mix, 'fantasy-come-romance-come-history with a Roman play trying to elbow its way in', Cymbeline. I realise I haven't really sold the play very well. Let me explain.
A few years ago, I was deep in the midst of what I term my 'Shakespeare Hipster' phase - that is, swearing adoration for lesser known plays in an attempt to forge some sense of originality in a thoroughly ploughed field of scholarship. Hell, I'm still in that phase and if my dissertation on Titus Andronicus doesn't prove that, I don't know what will. In tribute to my adolescent devotion to Cymbeline and with a bashful acknowledgement that little of this blog will make sense to readers who are entirely unfamiliar with the plot (of which there will be many), I here offer an attempt at a plot summary. It's as brief as I could keep it but still really rather hefty so feel free to jump over the next few paragraphs.
[Three main story lines dominate and intersect within Cymbeline; that of the eponymous king of England and a threat to the country from Roman dictatorship, Cymbeline's daughter Imogen (or Innogen) whose banished husband Posthumus bargains a wager on her chastity with an Italian named Iachimo (or Jachimo), and two young princes who were unknowingly stolen from Cymbeline at birth and have since been living as mountaineers with their kidnapper/adopted father/disgraced courtier.
Against a backdrop of political tensions between England and Rome, the princess Imogen has upset her father by marrying the lowly but worthy Posthumus instead of the Queen's god-awful son, Cloten. Posthumus is banished and meets up with a band of greasy misogynists in Italy, including the slimiest of them all, Iachimo. Placing a bet on her chastity, Iachimo uses deceptive and downright intrusive methods to trick Posthumus into thinking he has slept with Imogen. Posthumus orders Imogen's servant Pisanio to murder her, when Pisanio (convinced of Imogen's innocence) instead advises Imogen to dress as a boy and stick it out in the woods, safe within the trusty Shakespearean trope of cross-dressing heroines. She is promptly picked up by her mountaineer birth-brothers who take the 'young boy', 'Fidele' into their 'household' (it's really a cave) as a page. Meanwhile, Imogen's hopeless suitor, Cloten, has fled with the intention of raping Imogen in Posthumus' clothes but instead meets with the aforementioned mountaineers. Brother-with-a-name-impossible-to-pronounce Number 1 kills Cloten and chops of his head for being a little bitch. 'Fidele' has since taken a potion concocted by the evil Queen which she thinks to be restorative. It in fact pulls a Juliet on her and convinces her devastated mountaineer birth-brothers that she is dead. They bury 'Fidele' next to Cloten's headless body who, if you remember, was wearing Posthumus' clothes. Imogen wakes and assumes the dead body next to her is her husband's and is then picked up as a page by the invading Roman forces. Turns out the most employable asset to have on your CV is part time cross dressed boy.
TAKE A LEFT TURN, IT'S TIME FOR SOME BATTLE SCENES. The Roman invasion and Cymbeline's consequent victory brings all the characters together into a huge final scene. NB: Except for the Queen, who has died and hilariously confessed she never loved Cymbeline, along with a monstrous list of crimes, on her death bed. Recognitions, reparations and reunions follow in abundance as essentially every plot twist and disguise I have weaved above unravels like a jumper caught on a nail. It's all very emotional - that is, after Posthumus mistakenly beats a still-disguised Imogen, which is quite disturbing.]
TL,DR: Everyone lies to each other for five acts until the final scene where everyone tells the truth. Oh, and Jupiter rides in on an eagle at one point which is pretty cool.
And, exhale. Despite its spaghetti junction of a plot, Cymbeline truly did hold its own amongst my favourite plays for years because I find it gripping to read. This is an odd sensation with Shakespeare plays - largely I am enthralled by productions. I am equally captivated by reading the plays for the beauty of the language and the depth of the characters, but not necessarily for the plot convulsions. Cymbeline is the reverse of this. Many of the characters are painfully two-dimensional. The Queen, for example, is ripped straight from fairy tales as the stock-type of an evil step mother. The play's demanding plot takes precedence largely over character development or motive; the explanation for Rome's invasion is tenuous and the scene where this is established seems pulled from a different play, we don't really know what motivated Belarius to steal the two princes beyond a strangely vague explanation, Posthumus wildly switches sides in the battle scenes with almost no justification for doing so. The play itself admits that the strange things that happen are beyond the comprehension of the characters; 'Howso'er it is strange ... / Yet it is true, sir' one Lord tells another in the play's opening scene. If there was a line to capture the tone of the play, it ought to be this.
Reading today, an odd thematic parallel occurred to me that hadn't in my previous few readings of the play. Cymbeline shares a number of themes with it's supposed near-contemporary play, John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. Webster's most famous tragedy shares with this play a marriage whose potential for social mobility discomforts many of the characters, it shares a disdainful and toxic court environment which is seemingly purged by the play's conclusion, a language which dances the boundary between servitude and romantic love (watch out for Iachimo particularly here - as in below). I hadn't expected to find the gory and bleak Malfi as a bedfellow to Cymbeline.
'Let me tender my service on your lips'
Cym. 1.6.136
Cym. 1.6.136
There is a world of things I'd love to unpack within this weird play - not least the trunk scene (2.2), which I was so devoted to as a tangential parallel in my dissertation that I was damn close to holding a memorial service when I had to edit it out. For that scene, so deliciously uncharacteristic of Shakespeare and so brimming as a dramatic spectacle, I refer you to the 1982 BBC production with Helen Mirren as Imogen and Robert Lindsay as Iachimo. It is spectacularly worth a watch.
My day, not unlike the play, was busy. A get together with a best friend and a very interesting screening of Branagh Theatre Company's Romeo and Juliet, perhaps more to come on the latter. This being perhaps my longest post to date, I feel a very abridged summary of the day is needed.
(If you've made it this far, damn. Thanks.)
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