Cymbeline (Vol. 73) - Normand Berlin (essay date spring 1999)
Normand Berlin (essay date spring 1999)
SOURCE: Berlin, Normand. Review of Cymbeline. The Massachusetts Review 40, no. 1 (spring 1999): 137-53.
[In the following excerpted review of the Royal Shakespeare Company's staging of Cymbeline at Stratford, Berlin observes that director Adrian Noble's extensive cuts of the play-text contributed to an increased energy in the performance, but seemed to diminish its magic and romance as well.]
Adrian Noble's Cymbeline, which the RSC performed first in Stratford and then in the large Barbican Theatre where I saw it, did not fare much better [than Twelfth Night]. The play's unfamiliarity, the fact that it is seldom performed, helped spark some interest. Although not considered one of Shakespeare's so-called “problem plays,” it does pose a problem of genre—is it a tragedy, as the First Folio indicates, or a comedy, as most modern productions (including this one)...
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