[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) suggest, or a tragicomedy, as most scholars use the term? It certainly offers a director unique challenges because of its many complications in plot design, and many changes in locale. Noble, to his credit, tried to give the play a clarity it seems to lack by cutting about 1000 lines and quickening the pace of presentation. But his attempt did not result in a satisfying production. Yes, it was energetic in movement but little attention was paid to the characters who were moving. When I think back on my experience of the play in the theater I clearly remember the costumes and the staging, but no character stands out except in the most obvious way—Cloten's sly evil, the Queen's cartoonish menace. Noble gave the play an exotic quality by having some characters, mostly servants, dressed in Chinese or Japanese costumes—I'm not sure which—scurrying around the stage in short coolie-like steps, while others, in the Welsh scenes, wore rough canvas and fur, and while the rest of the cast wore costumes that designated no specific place, a kind of hodgepodge of dress, with color taking on its obvious significance (Imogen and Cymbeline in white, Cloten in black). A huge white sheet, almost covering the entire stage, served many purposes as the play progressed. At first it was on the ground with characters sitting on it, then it was lifted to become a ceiling, then a cave, then a tent, etc., sometimes providing slits through which the characters moved. The cleverness of Anthony Ward's stage design called attention to itself. The sweep and pace of movement—often up and down ramps into the audience space—and the costumes and that white sheet: these are the memorable elements of this production.

As with Twelfth Night, this comedy, this romance, had little magic that came from the poetry, and Noble paid too little attention to the characters who spoke the poetry. Imogen should be the bright spot in any production of Cymbeline. Like those other young women of Shakespeare's romances—Marina, Perdita, Miranda—she must register a wide range of emotions: love, of course, and ardor and sadness and joy and tenderness and anguish. Joanne Pearce tried hard, but like the entire production she was usually strident. I sorely missed the moments of tenderness that Shakespeare allows her to display. Certainly the final union of Imogen and Posthumus, after all the deceptions and misunderstandings, should be both poignant and magical. It wasn't; theirs was just one more reconciliation in a series of mechanical reconciliations. As played by Paul Freeman, Iachimo displayed little relish in his victory over Posthumus. In fact, he displayed no trace of Italian lechery in his rather pedestrian performance. Too old for the part, he did not allow the audience to feel the danger he posed to Imogen and Posthumus. His acting never suggested that something deep was happening to him when he observes the sleeping Imogen in her bedchamber. He never came close to feeling the words Shakespeare gave him: “Cytherea, / How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily, / And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch! / But kiss, one kiss!” (II, 2, 13-17). And that was the problem throughout. I missed the special pleasure that dramatic poetry can provide. This was a director's play and a designer's play; they provided their own kind of magic. But that more difficult and more satisfying magic that comes from the mature poetry that Shakespeare gloriously provides in his romances, well, it seemed not to have a chance.