Period switch-ups aside, Mr. Sullivan’s previous productions for Shakespeare in the Park have generally been marked by simplicity and emotional clarity, presenting the plays as truthful, albeit fanciful or painful, reflections of real human experience. Here, the emphasis is somewhat deflatingly on the artifice in “Cymbeline.”

By Marilyn Stasio for Variety, 10 August 2015

There’s a reason nobody does “Cymbeline” straight. The late Romance is such a dumb play, with such a derivative plot and witless characters, that scholars have earnestly suggested Shakespeare might have written it as a self-parody. Nowadays send-up versions are common, as per the British company Cheek by Jowl, or our homegrown Fiasco Theater. The problem with director Daniel Sullivan’s fresh take on the play for Shakespeare in the Park is that it’s neither here nor there — not outrageous enough to be funny, but not sober enough to be taken seriously.

The set (by Riccardo Hernandez) is the first giveaway that the production has no idea where it’s going. In the center of the stage is a gold frame set inside a much larger gold frame, but no formal tableaux to step into either frame. On either side of the proscenium are towering stacks of rubbish — wooden crates, some labeled with the titles of other plays from the Shakespearean canon, precariously balanced bentwood chairs and assorted busts and statues, with a skeleton off to one side and a chandelier on top.  Adding to the chaotic visuals are large two-dimensional images of Napoleon charging into battle and some war machine that could be a tank.

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‘Cymbeline’ in the Park is a Smidge Showy, but Who’s Complaining?

By Tom Sellar for the Village Voice, 11 August 2015

Shakespeare titled his late romance Cymbeline, and words emblazoned on the back curtain at this Shakespeare in the Park production read, “The Story of Cymbeline.”

But this often absurd tale of innocent love belongs more to slandered daughter Imogen (Lily Rabe) than to her royal father in the title role. The Delacorte’s mainstay director Daniel Sullivan offers a boppy but not particularly introspective look at Imogen’s distress.

His do-no-harm approach keeps things jokey and works hard to entertain, adding enough song-and-dance numbers to please the most attention-deficient groundling. (Raúl Esparza, who makes a delightfully raffish villain as Iachimo, owns the show after entering with a swaggering Vegas-style number.)

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Lily Rabe, Hamish Linklater headline a feel-good ‘Cymbeline’

By Elisabeth Vincentelli for the New York Post, 11 August 2015

A hodgepodge of plots and mood swings, “Cymbeline” hardly ranks among the Bard’s finest, or even near-finest. But Daniel Sullivan’s production for Shakespeare in the Park is agreeably lighthearted, steered by the likable, real-life couple Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater. So often do they play the Delacorte that they’re probably on a first-name basis with Central Park’s raccoons.

As in so many Shakes plays, a key part of the plot involves a man (Linklater’s Posthumus) who questions the fidelity of his wife (Rabe’s Imogen) based on flimsy evidence supplied by a double–crossing friend (Raúl Esparza’s Iachimo). Posthumus believes his buddy rather than his wife and all hell breaks loose before a happy ending wraps together the many plot strands — which include a conniving queen (Kate Burton, not far off from her vice president on TV’s “Scandal”) and long-lost siblings (David Furr and Jacob Ming-Trent).

Cymbeline may be the king, but he has little to do here — which is a bummer, because he’s played by Patrick Page, just as good as he was as the Green Goblin in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

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