"Cymbeline" Shakespeare in the Parks

Pure Shakespeare: easily lifted plots, reworked characters from other authors, older tales woven into his own stories. Cymbeline offers up its own delights of soap opera or fairy tale. Imogen is a gallant creation, who has been idealized by male critics, for centuries, as a kind of perfect woman. Iachimo, while hardly deep, is a fun villain to watch--clever, and not truly evil enough to hate. This entertaining play, almost entirely plot, gives us sword fights, disguises, poisons, and two eminently hiss-able villains in the Queen and Cloten. Indeed, the entire story contains many elements of th...