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Reviewed by: Cymbelineby Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Nicole Stodard CymbelinePresented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon. 2204– 2705 2023. Directed by Gregory Doran. Set and costume design by Stephen Brimsom-Lewis. Casting by Helena Palmer CDG. Lighting design by Matt Daw. Music composed by Paul Englishby. Music direction by Ben McQuigg. Text and voice work by Emma Woodvine. Sound design by Jonathan Ruddick. Puppetry direction by Rachel Leonard. With Jeff Alexander (Soothsayer), Adam Baker (Roman Captain/Frenchman), Iwan Bond (Roman Captain/Spaniard), Tom Chapman (Second Lord), Peter De Jersey (Cymbeline), Alexandria Gilbreath (Queen), Conor Glean (Cloten), Scott Gutteridge (Guiderius), Mark Hadfield (Pisanio), Amber James (Imogen), Marcia Lecky (First Lady/Dorothy/Mother), Jake Mann (Cornelius), Theo Ogundipe (Caius Lucius), Keith Osborn (Philario/Sicilius), Christian Patterson (Belarius), Ed Sayer (Posthumus), Daf Thomas (Arviragus), Barnaby Tobias (First Lord/Dutchman), Cat White (Helen/Second Lady), and Jamie Wilkes (Iachimo). End Page 111 Gregory Doran mounted Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare's least performed plays, as his swansong production as the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)— Cymbelinemarked Doran's fiftieth RSC production and his thirtieth work by Shakespeare. This was a daring but fitting decision given the breadth of Doran's career, the play's complexity and length, and its theme of regeneration, which held special contextual meaning because of the leadership changeover occurring at the RSC with Doran retiring. In their joint playbill greeting, Executive Director Catherine Mallyon and Acting Artistic Director Erica Whyman noted this parallel, highlighting how life and art often inform one another. Cymbelinemay be Shakespeare's most generically unconventional play; in her program note, Emma Smith characterizes it as "an aesthetic of montage, or mashup." Her assessment dovetails with Doran's treatment of the play, which felt fresh and cinematic due to its high-tech, sophisticated design elements. Doran creatively and elegantly embraced the play's eclecticism and its potential for spectacle. For example, he incorporated puppetry in the opening exchange between the First and Second Gentlemen by having a puppet of Posthumus as a child appear to animate their account of Posthumus's tragic childhood. Later in the production, Doran staged a large-scale, elaborately choreographed battle and an impressive, fly-system descent of a Greco-Roman masked Jupiter against a highly realistic looking projected rain backdrop. Production design by Stephen Brimson-Lewis and lighting design by Matt Daw infused the world of the production with a richly hued, celestial aesthetic that suggested the interrelatedness of everything in the cosmos. A large fabric sphere suspended upstage served alternately as the moon and sun. This ever-present, yet ever-changing lit centerpiece—a triumph of minimalist design—evoked the avant-garde theater of Robert Wilson and brought visual cohesion to Doran's production. In an interview with John Wilson on BBC Radio 4's Front Row, Brimson-Lewis spoke candidly about how instrumental the work of other visual artists is to his own. In the case of Cymbeline, Brimson-Lewis found inspiration in the abstract paintings of British artist Howard Hodgkin. A quick glance at Hodgkin's oeuvre reveals a consistent use of bold brush strokes End Page 112and color choices that stir the senses in profound and often ineffable ways, typical of modern art. Traces of Hodgkin's style reverberated in Brimson-Lewis and Daw's sharp, sleek, and painterly design. Together, set and lighting fused to form a compelling, color-wheel landscape that continuously morphed, suggesting time of day and atmosphere, and reflecting the fluctuating emotions and relationships of the characters at the heart of the play. Costume design struck a balance between period-honoring and modern. The Roman characters donned traditional attire—rich reds, golden armors, and brown leathers—and the Italian and British characters wore Tudor-inspired costumes, with some noteworthy exceptions. For one, the estranged Britons, Guiderius, Arviragus, and Belarius were fur- and leather-clad with hairstyles resembling mullets that evoked characters from a Mad Maxfilm. For another, the Queen, who wore black gowns with silver accents and rocked a two-toned, black-and-white pompadour hairstyle, conjured images of iconic Disney villains, though...
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