SOURCE: Isherwood, Charles. Review of Cymbeline. Variety 386, no. 5 (28 January 2002): 42.

In the following review, Isherwood appraises director Bartlett Sher's rendition of Cymbeline performed by A Theater for a New Audience at the Lucille Lortel Theater in 2002. Sher is referred to as “ingenious” for his approach to the “play's preposterous extremes.”

Shakespeare's densely plotted late romance Cymbeline is an unruly animal. Let the ornery thing run wild and it will bowl you over. Try to tame it and you're in trouble, too. Smooth out its contrasting textures and tones, and boredom ensues. Bartlett Sher, the ingenious director of the new production at the Lucille Lortel Theater, takes just the right approach: He embraces the play's preposterous extremes and, like a skilled rodeo hand breaking in a wild horse, turns them into virtues. The result is a pretty darn delightful production of one of the Bard's most troublesome plays.

The Wild...