Seattle Shakespeare Company's Chamber Cymbeline: Peculiarities of the Instrument

In a letter to a friend, Goethe once described chamber music thus:

One hears rational people conversing with one another and believes he gains something from their discourse while learning the peculiarities of the instruments.

Seattle Shakespeare Company's Chamber Cymbeline aspires to be chamber-like. Yet it lacks the real qualities of chamber music: informality, intimacy and, above all, clarity.

In chamber music as in conversation, partners speak with each other for pleasure but also for exchange of ideas. In Chamber Cymbeline however, all due effort goes to "keep the play moving" rather than to establish sense. Words are often stated rather than shared, and meaning is routinely treated as irrelevant. This is fatal, as it's an already difficult play that centuries of directors and playwrights have re-written (even George Bernard Shaw, who unusually liked the play).

Jennifer Lee Taylor's portrayal of "Imogen" exemplifies this problem. She is clearly a fine actress and an energetic one, but she struggles in this performance because she simply has too much to do. The role demands a keen balance between passive righteousness, noble restraint and extreme passion, and a mastery of linear thought. Instead Ms. Taylor often finds herself overwhelmed by text. Without clear purpose to guide her speech, her emotions become business-like, and it unravels her character.

Other actors, even the excellent Connor Toms and Alexander Samuels, also find themselves in this quandary, and director Henry Woronicz must shoulder the blame for this. Some of the characters, such as Jeanne Paulsen's "Queen", are virtually unexplored. Mr. Woronicz's sense of connection between scenes is excellent, and he grasps the machinations of the plot. One can hardly quibble with his editing of text, and the imagery of some scenes, such as the war itself, is absolutely brilliant. The play definitely moves along, even though it is almost three hours. It even moves along when it shouldn't.

However, Mr. Woronicz has chosen to emphasize comedy rather than drama. This is not a problem in itself, but even the tenderest dramatic scenes have comic pacing. It is not riposte these scenes need. It is meaning. What exactly does it mean when Imogen says "Sinon's weeping did scandal many a holy tear, took pity from most true wretchedness: so thou, Posthumus wilt lay the leaven on proper men"? And why? Shredding the words just to be done with them is not an effective way to entertain or enlighten the audience, yet it seems to be de rigueur much of the evening.

Certainly Shakespeare is to blame for some of this. The final scene remains an unholy mess, even if one agrees with David L. Frost that it is to be taken as parody. Yet parody, too, fails when it lacks sense and a clear target, and the Seattle Shakespeare Company production lacks both. As chamber music goes, certainly not all persons in the play are rational, but it is still important to gain something from their discourse.

January 5-30 // Center House Theatre at Seattle Center, 305 Harrison Street // Tickets $20-$38