Shakespeare in the Park Returns with ‘Cymbeline’

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Optimist Theatre's 'Cymbeline' at Alverno College

Optimist Theatre's 'Cymbeline' at Alverno College

Love is as pleasantly confusing as it’s ever been. This summer, Optimist Theatre delves into the bewilderment of the most tender emotions as it presents a free touring production of Shakespeaere’s Cymbeline. The charmingly charismatic Susie Duecker holds together the center of the ensemble in the role of Imogen. Duecker is passionately heroic as a woman cursed to noble birth who has fallen in love with commoner. Zach Thomas Woods inhabits a similarly strong stage presence in the role of Imogen’s lover Posthumus. The object of Imogen’s affections might not have a strong presence in the script, but Woods grants him a great deal of power.  

Libby Amato plays two different villains who interact with the romance from different ends. She’s regal and cold as the queen. She’s playfully sinister as Iachimo, who challenges Posthumus’ lofty visions of Imogen’s virtue. The two characters are written in strange fragments of characterization that feel profoundly uneven. Amato weaves them together onstage in a way that feels organic enough to overcome the weird thrusts in characterization that the script pushes them through. Michael Stebbins and Ken T. Williams lend the ensemble gravitas from opposite ends of the periphery. Stebbins feels regal-yet-approachable as King Cymbeline. Williams summons a powerful sense of honor as the banished lord Belarius.

Director M.L. Cogar admirably holds together one of Shakespeare’s most difficult plays. Imogen and Posthumus tumble around a plot that doesn’t have a firm forward momentum. Cogar has found a way to harness the dramatic energy of the drama that also finds a place for a more nuanced end of lighter drama and comedy. The story’s many turns rush through a very brisk 90 minutes without intermission in the summer heat as the sun slowly begins its descent into the evening. 

Optimist Theatre’s traveling production of Cymbeline runs through Aug. 13.For tour dates and time, visit Optimist Theatre online.