Summary 
Well-directed black-box romance is a clearly told entertainment with a noble heroine at its heart. The men surrounding her are well-performed - an angry father, a deceived lover, a comical suitor, a villainous foreigner - with all the usual contrivances ranging from a woman pretending to be a man, to an impending war, to long-lost princes, all resolved in an ending made happy through the spectacular intervention of the god Jupiter.
Design
Directed by Antoni Cimolino. Scenic design by Scott Penner. Costume design by Carolyn M. Smith. Lighting design by Robert Thomson. Compositions by Steven Page. Sound Design by Todd Charlton.
Cast
Geraint Wyn Davies (Cymbeline), Cara Ricketts (Innogen), Graham Abbey (Posthumus), Yanna McIntosh (Queen), Mike Shara (Cloten), Peter Hutt (Doctor Cornelius), Brian Tree (Pisanio), John Vickery (Belarius), Alden Adair (Guiderius), Ian Lake (Arviragus), Andrew Gillies (Philario), Tom McCamus (Iachimo), Cyrus Lane (Jupiter).
Analysis
Antoni Cimolino, already named the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's artistic director for next season, directs Cymbeline, and he smoothes rough edges and manages to make narrative sense of a complicated and fanciful romance. His production benefits from a sensitive portrayal of the conflicted title character, Geraint Wyn Davies playing the angry King Cymbeline like an anguished father rather than a petulant tyrant. Cimolino begins with the nightmare image of the distraught Cymbeline staggering from upstage to his center stage bed, intimidated by the passersby milling around and pressing closer, seeming to stare at - and condemn - him. His cry of "Innogen!" is one of tortured regret.
As compelling as Davies' performance is, the production revolves around Innogen - Cimolino chooses the double-n version of the name rather than the supposed typographical misspelling of "Imogen" - and Cara Ricketts provides a strong central heroine. Her Innogen is elegant and refined, then courageous and forthright, always well-spoken. Ricketts' Innogen grabs the King's hand 1.2 when he raises it to strike her, and she reveals a lack of fear even when he throws her to the ground. She proves herself loyal, resisting Iachimo's lecherous 1.7 embrace and suggestion to "be revenged" upon the supposedly unfaithful Posthumus, and in 2.3 she endures Cloten's comically misguided seduction attempt - Cloten dances with a series of odd bunny hops to the music of his hired band of troubadours - firing a clipped "I care not for you" that leaves her suitor spitting in comic fury before he stomps off in a snit: "well!"
Ricketts' Innogen, with a stiff-upper-lip courage that indicates English nobility, prays on her knees bedside 2.2, a vulnerable heroine in eerie midnight-blue lighting. She shows steadfast resolve, never becoming histrionic, as might be expected in a rather absurdly plotted romance: she draws Pisanio's sword for him 2.4, kneeling when faced with Posthumus's murderous commands - "do his bidding" - but after twice failing to stab herself because her thrusting blade cannot penetrate a packet of love letters from Posthumus, she takes Pisanio's beyond-absurd advice and disguises herself (of course) as a "saucy" boy. After interval, she appears 3.6 in self-conscious disguise, wearing short hair and a cap - "a man's life is a tedious one" - and when asked her name in 3.7, Ricketts' flustered Innogen blows out her cheeks - "Fideles!" - and sheepishly responds to playful punches.
Mike Shara's vain rock-star styling for cloddish Cloten provides comic relief within the jittery narrative. Shara's Cloten is a pretty-boy in long dark hair, a tall and posing narcissist favoring black and blue leather: during a 2.3 attempt to impress Innogen, he hitches up his belt and thrusts out a leg to the heroine's dismay. He laughs too loudly at his own crude penetration jokes in 2.1, then peevishly refuses tribute to the Roman soldiers in 3.1. Almost too confused to be dangerous, he mutters "I love and hate her" during 3.5, blaming Innogen that he is frightened in the wilderness. He comes up with the singularly bad idea of dressing in Posthumus' clothing - "his meanest garment!" - but by 4.1 is ineffectually prowling upstage: "I cannot find these runagates."
Innogen's other male antagonists - ironically, her love Posthumus, and the Italian Iachimo - are fully drawn characters, far deeper than Cloten's comical foil. Graham Abbey's urbane Posthumus wears black, appearing sophisticated in 1.2 despite his low birth, his cape jauntily thrown over one shoulder. In 1.5, accompanied by Italian music and standing beside center stage candelabra, he waxes poetic over Innogen, drawing the villainous interest of Tom McCamus's mustachioed Iachimo. Their angry wager over the fidelity of Innogen is the catalyst for the near-tragic events of the rest of the play.
In the most effective scene of Cimolino's production, McCamus's barefoot Iachimo pops like a weasel from the trunk in Innogen's bedchamber - "hell is here" - making a serpentine crawl to her bed to straddle her and pull bedcovers away. He admires a mole, removes her bracelet, and takes written notes of the private bedroom, even as Innogen murmurs Posthumus's name in her sleep, and his ensuing 2.4 "victory" is diabolic. McCamus's Iachimo seems to savor the little-by-little devastation of Posthumus within the yellow-lit Italian parlor, brandishing Innogen's bracelet as a supposed love token - "she has been colted by him" - until Posthumus nearly collapses, the foundations of his world shaken: "the very devils!"
The latter portion of Cimolino's production is clearly told fanciful romance, if perhaps too far removed from the drama of Cymbeline and the travails of Innogen and the men in her life. Cymbeline's long lost and assumed-dead sons are Welsh bow-hunters - one short-haired and one long-haired, both muscular and wearing animal skins while carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows - amid wild countryside denoted by ragged brown and green curtains hung across the black-box stage. The 4.2 dramatics are disconcerting, played straight so the comic undertones remain very subtle: one brother returns Cloten's head in a sack, and the other carries the supposedly dead Innogen in his arms. Their "fear no more the heat of the sun" dirge is suitably elegiac, but when Innogen awakens next to the headless corpse of Cloten, wearing Posthumus's clothing, she panics: "murder!"
The uncomfortable combination of tragedy and comedy continues with Posthumus's adventures late in the play. After a 4.3 precursor to the war - bright lights, martial drumming - Abbey's Posthumus falls to his knees 5.1, and after a stirring speech, he rises to his feet to join the combat. Abbey makes a welcome return to the Festival at which he once was a star, delivering a poignant and carefully controlled performance in an out-of-control storyline. His Posthumus excels in the individual fighting - besting an Italian soldier in 5.2 who reveals himself, if only to the audience, to be Iachimo - but amid swirling smoke and flashes of white lights, he is captured and imprisoned. The 5.4 appearance by Jupiter, elevated upstage and standing astride a mechanical red-eyed eagle that flaps its gigantic wings, is an eye-popping bit of theatrics. Amid blinding strobes and amplified eagle cries, the god himself advises Posthumus, who is flanked onstage by spirits.
Although it is admittedly rather difficult to follow a scene that includes the appearance of a god flying astride a giant eagle, Cimolino and his cast are up to the challenge of the play's fantastical conclusion. With the stage lights up, Davies' Cymbeline defeats the last of the Roman soldiers, aided ironically by his own long-missing sons. When the various confessions and admissions begin - Iachimo drops to his knees, as does Posthumus - the exclamations draw laughter, from Cymbeline's "does the world go round?" to Cornelius' mental head-slap: "o gods, I left out one thing!" The reunions are heartwarming - Posthumus to Innogen, whose arms are around his neck: "hang there like fruit" - with Davies' Cymbeline embracing Innogen (who squeals in delight) and Posthumus, then his once-trusted advisor, and finally his now-grown children. After Posthumus's stern words of warning to Iachimo - "live, and deal with others better" - Davies' Cymbeline pardons literally everyone, including the warring Romans, and is carried aloft on the shoulders of soldiers in an impossibly happy ending.