AN almost tearfully thankful air envel ops the stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theater, when, to ward the end of Mark Lamos’ emotionally charged production of “Cymbeline,” the King declaims: “Pardon’s the word for all.” Pardon and peace.
And perhaps pieces, too, for what is entrancing in this Shakespeare play is that the characters seem like marvelous chess pieces, all glimpsed in earlier plays and caught here in some magic endplay of autumnal resolution.
“Cymbeline” is one of those final Shakespearean plays we call, having no better description, romances – and they all have this same autumnal glow about them.
Though written when the playwright was only in his mid-40s, autumn came a little earlier in his day.
Shakespeare’s people are wonderfully of our own selves, while reappearing again and again in the scope of his imagination.
His steadfast heroine, Imogen, we’ve seen and loved in a dozen plays, but here she reaches the epitome of her womanhood.
Jealous husband Posthumus recalls Leontes of “The Winter’s Tale” or even Othello, while the Machiavellian villain Iachimo echoes Iago, and King Cymbeline, Imogen’s father, has more than a crazed touch of Lear to him.
Yet, oddly enough, “Cymbeline” has traditionally had a reputation ranging from bad to difficult. It’s not. It’s a fairy tale for adults who have suffered enough to believe in fairies and heavenly providence.
Perhaps the prime virtues of Lamos’ elegant, eloquent staging (and the man is among the finest Shakespearean directors in the world) are its grace, speed and total intelligibility. More than any of the many productions of “Cymbeline” I’ve seen, it has an immediacy that grips, grasps and tenaciously holds.
He is blessed with two essential assets. The first is his design team, giving us Michael Yeargan’s otherworldly and audaciously theatrical settings, Jess Goldstein’s carefully and beautifully apt costuming, Brian MacDevitt’s sensuous lighting, and the quietly bewitching music of Mel Marvin.
Then, of course, there is his cast. The three principals are splendid. Martha Plimpton’s gutsy yet vulnerable Imogen, Michael Cerveris as her wronged and poetically distraught husband Posthumus, and his betrayer Jonathan Cake’s slinkily sensual Iachimo (he even makes his remorseful penitence convincing) offer a trio that would be hard to beat.
Among the other roles, John Cullum is all melancholy dignity as Cymbeline, Imogen’s father; and Adam Dannheisser is riotously funny as the clownish Cloten, Imogen’s other suitor.
The cast throughout is generally very strong, its weakest link being Phylicia Rashad as Cymbeline’s second wife, and mother to Cloten, who seems to think she’s playing the Wicked Queen in Disney’s “Snow White.” Not quite.
But this and one or two other quibbles apart, Lincoln Center’s “Cymbeline” is an enthralling evening of Shakespeare, one that leaves you thinking, at least briefly, that all is right with the world.
Of course, it’s simply a playwright’s magic dust expertly scattered.
CYMBELINE
The Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center, Broadway and 65th Street; (212) 239-6200.