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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2016 0:48:32 GMT
I wonder if people who had never seen the play before could follow what was going on. Answer: yes. I've seen the play several times before but I couldn't follow it. The main directorial attention is on the images and they aren't synchronised with the spoken text. The most obscure section is the opening which is extraordinarily busy in an utterly baffling way, in parallel with a disconnected impenetrable monologue. |
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Post by Someone in a tree on Nov 26, 2016 19:13:21 GMT
Friends and I really enjoyed this. First half more so appeared to run out of steam a little towards the end
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Post by argon on Nov 28, 2016 22:38:54 GMT
Ahead of the the recent Globe production but slightly on the long side. However I thought the gender switch for Cymbeline worked well and the cast were strong cross the board.
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Post by mallardo on Dec 9, 2016 10:11:02 GMT
I don't see much of the Bard these days, just the curios and outliers in the canon. Before yesterday my last Shakespeare was Pericles at the Wanamaker last winter. That one turned out to be surprisingly compelling and enjoyably funny! So this time I took a chance - a ten pound front row seat - on Cymbeline, a play I knew by name only. Alas, it was... not good.
Not talking about Melly Still's production which tried very hard to make the three hours plus go by ennui-free. But the play itself. Yikes! What a mess. It's as if Shakespeare had this commission but no time to concoct something original so he just threw everything he could think of - stealing from himself and everyone else - into a pot, stirred it up, and hoped for the best.
The final resolution scene, where the plot is explained over and over again - plot we had actually seen play out - was getting so many laughs from the audience that the actors actually started to play it for laughs. Who could blame them? In a way it's comforting to know that even a great genius like Shakespeare could produce a clunker once in a while. And this was certainly that. |
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Post by Jan on Dec 9, 2016 11:52:27 GMT
I don't see much of the Bard these days, just the curios and outliers in the canon. Before yesterday my last Shakespeare was Pericles at the Wanamaker last winter. That one turned out to be surprisingly compelling and enjoyably funny! So this time I took a chance - a ten pound front row seat - on Cymbeline, a play I knew by name only. Alas, it was... not good.
Not talking about Melly Still's production which tried very hard to make the three hours plus go by ennui-free. But the play itself. Yikes! What a mess. It's as if Shakespeare had this commission but no time to concoct something original so he just threw everything he could think of - stealing from himself and everyone else - into a pot, stirred it up, and hoped for the best.
The final resolution scene, where the plot is explained over and over again - plot we had actually seen play out - was getting so many laughs from the audience that the actors actually started to play it for laughs. Who could blame them? In a way it's comforting to know that even a great genius like Shakespeare could produce a clunker once in a while. And this was certainly that. I would not absolve Melly Still from blame. The last scene is a challenge. If you play the rest of the play straight (as Peter Hall did in his very good production) then the last scene tends to get laughs. In a brilliant production it can work, such as the Cheek by Jowl one where the last scene was integrated into an overall fairytale-like approach and it was very touching. Pericles is more interesting on stage than Tempest in my experience. |
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