By Manning Harris for Atlanta INtown, 22 September 2015
The intrepid Shakespeare Tavern is probably the only theatre in town with the chutzpah to tackle Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline,” now running through Sept. 27.
It’s a problematical play just about any way you slice it: Celebrated Shakespearean scholar (and lover of the Bard) Harold Bloom says it’s more a dramatic poem than a play; he senses that “something is wayward about this drama; it will not abide a steady contemplation.”
The legendary critic Dr. Samuel Johnson fumed: “The play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the expense of much incongruity.” He even says that to go on “were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection.” I think Dr. Johnson goes a bit far.
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