Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.There may be a reason Cymbeline isn’t staged that often. Shakespeare’s late play wields enough plot to sustain a Netflix series across several seasons. So into a power struggle swirling around Cymbeline, monarch of ancient Britain, come long-lost twins, mistaken identity, disguise, deadly drugs, sleeping potions, canny servants, issues of loyalty, jealousy and betrayal — to name but a few.We see echoes of As You Like It’s Rosalind in Cymbeline’s daughter Innogen, echoes of Othello’s Iago in the scheming Roman Iachimo. Unlike Shakespeare’s greatest, however, it’s not a play that spends too much time on reflection and subtlety of character. And yet. Coursing through it, as with all of the late works, is a moving impulse towards reconciliation and the profundity of forgiveness.Jennifer Tang’s spry, breezy production for the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse rises to the challenge of delivering all this with a brisk pace and a wry sense of humour. Like Tamara Harvey, director of the recent Pericles at the RSC (another work that rejoices in an excess of plot), Tang and her cast work up a sense of conspiracy with the audience — one particular highlight is Jordan Mifsúd’s dim-witted braggart Cloten getting distracted by the shapeliness of his own thigh mid-action. Laughter helps us to push through the more outlandish plot-points and reach some of the truths in the play.Tang also brings a fresh twist by making some key gender reversals to the characters. Here Cymbeline (Martina Laird, weary and worried) is a queen rather than a king, ruling over a matriarchy but manipulated by her second husband, who aims to manoeuvre his son Cloten into power by having him marry Innogen. He’s enraged that Innogen has secretly married her childhood sweetheart, Posthumus, who, in this version, is a woman (played by Nadi Kemp-Sayfi). The Duke’s machinations, stirring up political trouble with Rome and personal trouble with Innogen, come over as those of a man unable to tolerate female leadership.There’s similar bruised masculinity at play in Iachimo’s behaviour, when he encounters the now banished Posthumus. Rather than one-upmanship, his determination to destroy Posthumus by proving Innogen false takes on a deeply misogynistic vein. Pierro Niel-Mee’s Iachimo is wonderfully sleazy, and the show is full of smart, clear performances, not least Gabrielle Brooks’s defiant Innogen. The downside of the approach is that it all becomes a little too forceful in places — there’s some ferocious emoting — and the few shifts into a gentler, more reflective mode are welcome. Basia Bińkowska’s burnished gold set adorned with what look like bleached bones, and mixed-period costumes, suspend the story somewhere between ancient Britain and a fantastical future. Meanwhile the imaginative percussive score from Laura Moody, using glass domes, beads and pebbles, lends a slightly eerie edge. It still gets bogged down in the sheer weight of incident, but this is a witty production that finds an interesting new slant of power struggle inflected by gender.★★★☆☆To April 20, shakespearesglobe.com
