Where Imogen's Play Is Named after Her Dad

Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm not angling for any hot takes or anything, but Cymbeline has become my new favorite Shakespeare play. I liked it. I enjoyed reading it. I would like to see it performed.

And I'm maybe the only one.

First of all, it's a very entertaining story, based mostly on one of the tales from the Decameron, where a dude bets a guy he could seduce his love and then cheats (lies and produces stolen evidence) to prove that he did it. Then the supposedly-injured man despises his love... and after that, hijinks ensue. Lots of "kill her!" and "No, second thought, don't kill her!" and "Oh no, I hope you didn't actually kill her!" Also: lots of people in disguise and lots of secrets coming out.

A subplot is about the courtier falsely accused of treason who is banished 20 years before the start of the play; he kidnaps the two princes and raises them in the wilderness, just in time to enter the story as noble young Aragorn types.

Then there's the evil queen stirring up shit between the Britons and the Romans, along with her evil son.

Altogether, it makes a pretty good Romance-style story, one that could have been 500 pages of beautiful prose from the pen of Sir Walter Scott. And best of all--for me, because this is what I like--it's a comedy with a happy ending. Imagine Othello, but where he learns the truth BEFORE he kills Desdemona, and instead of murdered wife and murderer husband they live happily ever after. (Don't @ me. I taught that play many years in school and I contemplated changing the ending every time. Don't kill that sweet woman! Stop! Horrible ending.)

(Jesus, Grandpa! What did you read me this thing for?)

I was curious to see if others took to the play like I did, and it doesn't look like it, but it's hard to say. In numerous articles purporting to list the "best" plays in order (which is not what I was looking for, but I peeked), Cymbeline ends up in the middle, or a bit closer to the end. In the one article I found listing "most popular" plays, which actually measured whether people knew it or not, it ends up second to last, just ahead of Pericles. (Which I also liked, btw.) Neither answered the question of what people like. Most people don't know it because it's seldom used in classrooms; scholars don't rank it very high because they don't like fun things. But that doesn't really tell us what regular people (which I think I am, thank you) *would* think of the play if they saw it or read it.

I think they'd like it.

Recommended

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