‘CYMBELINE’ REVIEW: This Fiasco is a joy to behold

With its sordid history, it comes as a genuine and grateful surprise that the Fiasco Theater’s new production of the work is a marvelous example of how transformative a little ingenuity and creativity can be in a theatrical setting. The production that opened Thursday, Sept. 8 at the Barrow Street Theatre tells the convoluted tale of separated lovers and their unusual fate with a bounding joy for all things whimsical. This perfectly rendered production is one of the truest examples of the power of reckless theatrical courage.

A wooden chest, within a matter of minutes, becomes a bed, a cave, a latrine, an escape route and even a means of decaptitation.

And that set piece is just one of the distinct pleasures of this frenzied, unmatched production. The two hours and 30 minutes you spend with this immensely talented company are some of the brightest moments of Shakespeare to appear on a New York stage in years.

Using a cast of six talented actors, two of whom pull double duty as co-directors, the Fiasco company brings to life Cymbeline by sticking to the Bard’s intentions, but also using his language much like a monkey uses a branch to get from here to there. They streamline 14 roles by not cutting them out, but simply performing all of them with different costumes and props, as if this were a neighborhood backyard on a midsummer’s night. There’s a real sense of “garage theater” here, the kind of bootstraps stagework that is sorely missing from contemporary renderings of the Bard.

You travel miles with these six actors, and all they need is a bed sheet, a chair, maybe an instrument or two.

Jessie Austrian plays Imogen, the stubborn daughter of King Cymbeline (Andy Grotelueschen) who has not taken kindly to her new stepmother, the Queen (Emily Young). When Imogen refuses the hand of the Queen’s son, Cloten (Grotetlueschen, again), and instead marries her lover, Posthumus (Noah Brody), banishments are made and the play’s plot is set in motion.

Ben Steinfeld, recently seen with Young in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, plays Iachimo, an Italian schemer who wagers 10,000 ducats that he can seduce Imogen. Confident in his wife’s faithfulness, Posthumus foolishly takes the bet and watches as this stranger heads off to woo Imogen.

Paul L. Coffey plays a handful of parts, but none more important than Pisanio, Posthumus’ loyal servant who tries desperately to make everything right again.

In the later stages of the play, several typical Shakespearan plot devices are used — everything from crossdressing to poisons that mimic death. Much of the story takes a fantastical complexity with several characters pointing fingers and vowing revenge.

The Fiasco troupe keeps everything light and airy, but never disparages the work. Throughout the entire two hours and 30 minutes of the production, the actors dedicate themselves to the story and their characters. Sure, there are moments of expressed exaggeration and clever theatricality, but it’s all grounded in the language.

The actors are uniformly excellent, with not a weak one in the bunch. While they aren’t speaking verse on the elevated circular stage of the Barrow Street Theatre, they sit in the background, watching the action, sometimes as if they are audience members themselves. Much credit should be given to Brody and Steinfeld for their inventive direction.

There’s a lot of music in this Cymbeline, with several moments when the cast breaks out into folksy hootenannies, plucking a guitar or blowing on a French horn. And anything and everything from the physical world is within arm’s reach. When two characters play pool atop the self-avowed “fabulous trunk,” another actor hits together cue balls in the background, mimicing the sounds of the parlor game. When Imogen is in need of a montage-like traveling sequence, she hops along boxes that are expertly thrown in front of her.

The climatic battle scene is a frenzied barrage of physical movements and convincing swordsplay. It serves as a perfect capstone for an invigorating evening where the tiny stage of the Barrow Street Theatre comes alive with fiery passion. These are actors in love with their parts, in love with Shakespeare’s words and in love with solving the problem of this problem play.

The production has played several venues in New York City, and thankfully it has returned for an extended run in Greenwich Village. This Cymbeline is a rare gem that is both entertaining and effectively entrancing.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Cymbeline

• Directed by Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld

• Written by William Shakespeare

• A production of the Fiasco Theater, presented by Theatre for a New Audience

• Starring Brody, Steinfeld, Jessie Austrian, Paul L. Coffey, Andy Grotelueschen and Emily Young

• Playing at the Barrow Street Theatre at 27 Barrow St. (corner of Seventh Avenue, one block south of Christopher Street) in New York City

• Click here for more information. Tickets are $75, with premium tickets available.

• Running time: two hours, 30 minutes

• Rating: