Cymbeline (2)

In 1682 Thomas D’Urfey (1653–1723) adapted Cymbeline, changing the names and the action, re-titling the play The Injured Princess and in general making the play a more sensationalized and much coarser work,1 but it was the 1761 version of David Garrick (1717–79) that became a theatrical success, surviving for generations, taken over by John Philip Kemble (1757–1823) and lastly by Samuel Phelps. This Garrick-Kemble version was last produced by Phelps in 1864.2 The essay by Helen Faucit (1814–98) on her experience of playing Imogen is a fair testimony to Victorian theatrical tastes, echoed by the account by Anna Jameson (1794–1860) of Imogen in her Shakespeare’sHeroines (1846).3 The play fell out of favour in the 1860s and really is in eclipse in the theatre until Peter Hall (born 1930) revived it in 1957 at Stratford, followed by William Gaskill (born 1930) in 1962 and, amongst others, Bill Alexander in 1987.4 Stephen Orgel’s entertaining review of Danny Sheie’s 2000 production, ‘Cymbeline at Santa Cruz’ displays a postmodern mélange out of which the strongest impression to survive seems to be the impossibility of believing in any of the constituent elements out of which Cymbeline appears to have been made, whether those are taken to be romantic love, a myth of the formation of a political entity (Britain), beliefs about kingship or the stability of sexual identity (tested, as it is in the comedies, only to be confirmed).