Broad's Eve View Reviews "Imogen" at Pointless Theatre

"Imogen" at Pointless Theatre. Pictured: Katelyn Manfre. Photo by DJ Corey Photography.

Imogen is Shakespeare's Cymbeline, re-imagined in an original adaptation by Charlie Marie McGrath at Pointless Theatre and presented as a part of the D.C. Women’s Voices Theatre Festival (January 18 - February 11, 2018)

The great critic William Hazlitt describes Imogen, the much-maligned heroine of Cymbeline, as "the most tender and the most artless" of all Shakespeare's women. And it's true—considering she has grown up in what seems to be a politically volatile and corrupt kingdom, she is remarkably unspoiled. She is trusting to a fault, blind to the ulterior motives of those around her (which are many, most of which are nefarious.) After all sorts of horrible abuse, she is returned to the throne at the end of the play, but it's not exactly a happy ending—you can't help feeling that her restoration is small reparations for the pain she's endured.

The play begins as a fairy tale and quickly devolves into a Kafka-esque nightmare: Imogen's father, King Cymbeline, ignores her, preferring his wicked new wife and her brutish son instead. Her gullible husband, exiled to Rome by her father, is persuaded by some fake-up proof that she has been unfaithful to him in his absence. In a fit of jealous rage, he sends secret orders for Imogen's immediate execution. A servant takes pity on her, disguises her in boys' clothing, and leaves her to fend for herself in the forest. There, she falls in with some kind-hearted rustics, but before too long she falls dangerously ill.

Luckily, she has brought along some special medicine in case of such an emergency. Unluckily, the elixir was swapped-out for poison by her wicked stepmother, and instead of curing her, it causes her to fall into a death-like slumber. She awakes to find—get this—the body of a decapitated man, dressed in her husband's clothes. (This is actually her brutish stepbrother who, after following her to the forest, meets a bad end at the hands of one of the rustics.)

Since the corpse is dressed in her husband's clothes (and since it no longer has a face) she's led to believe that she's murdered her beloved. She gets caught up in Roman-British War, where, in the thick of battle, she discovers her husband and reunites with her father.

"Illustration of Imogen" (1872) by Wilhelm Ferdinand Souchon.

"...considering she has grown up in what seems to be a politically volatile and corrupt kingdom, she is remarkably unspoiled. She is trusting to a fault, blind to the ulterior motives of those around her (which are many, most of which are nefarious.) After all sorts of horrible abuse, she is returned to the throne at the end of the play, but it's not exactly a happy ending—you can't help feeling that her restoration is small reparations for the pain she's endured."

Wild-and-wooly plot notwithstanding, Imogen's suffering is real, absolute, and unyielding. All of this—every damn awful thing—is done to her, or done at her, or done around her. She is merely an inconvenient obstacle in the way of others' scramble for political or sexual power, and they spare nothing to usurp or humiliated her. She is entirely blameless and entirely passive—even the idea to run away and dress like a boy is her servant's idea. She is so overwhelmed by the conspiracies against her that she often, like Snow White, falls unconscious. But no gentle dwarfs attend her—upon waking she discovers horrors she assumes are all her fault.

​She's not exactly a dope nor without charm, but she seems to lack the useful qualities possessed by similarly beleaguered Shakespearean heroines—wit, insight, energy, good timing, healthy skepticism. What she does have, in buckets, is forgiveness. At the end of the play, she absolves all of her tormentors without so much as a complaint, including her dum-dum of a husband, who has undoubtedly been the worst offender.  

It's just a bit queasy-making. Especially in the current climate.

"Softly Unloosening the Bracelet." (1918) Louis Rhead. (Drawing of Iachomo stealing Imogens bracelet, Act II Scene ii of Shakespeare's "Cymbeline.")

​"Wild-and-wooly plot notwithstanding, Imogen's suffering is real, absolute, and unyielding. All of this—every damn awful thing—is done to her, or done at her, or done around her."

George Bernard Shaw, who always had a bone or two to pick with Shakespeare, found all of this very hard to swallow. In his rewrite of play, Cymbeline Refinished, Imogen becomes a much more assertive figure in-line with his proto-feminist views. She interrogates her husband and other oppressors at the end, refusing to forgive them before finally saying that she will "go home and make the best of it, as other women must."

(Though you could argue that Imogen's ordeal is existential, absurd, an accurate psychological portrait of the individual in a dehumanized age, buffeted by circumstances beyond her control, paralyzed, bewildered, devoid of hope or meaning. She's Joseph K, on trial for crimes she cannot remember committing. In other words, her passivity is the play's point, not the problem.)

But, okay. If you want to make a production that empowers Imogen, that lends her some agency and action, where better to do it than at the D.C. Women's Voices Theatre Festival?

Pointless Theatre, a Helen Hayes's Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company, promises a production that puts Imogen's voice at the forefront. By re-naming the play and taking credit for an original adaptation, director Charlie Marie McGrath raises expectations for a radical re-imagining of Imogen's story, so much so that Shakespeare's original title won't do.

I'm all-in for that. I'm eager to see how a smart, bold company will use the play to reflect its concerns about the underrepresentation of female voices in the theatre and the "fabric of our culture" at large.

Imogen is Pointless Theatre's first Shakespeare production, and its choice to grapple with one of the more obscure plays speaks to the company's spirit and ambition. It's no small accomplishment to turn this rambler into a brisk and coherent production—and a stylish one at that.

"Imogen" at Pointless Theatre. Promotional image.

"By re-naming the play and taking credit for an original adaptation, director Charlie Marie McGrath raises expectations for a radical re-imagining of Imogen's story, so much so that Shakespeare's original title won't do.

I'm all-in for that. I'm eager to see how a smart, bold company will use the play to reflect its concerns about the underrepresentation of female voices in the theatre and the 'fabric of our culture' at large."

McGrath uses the company's signature blend of puppetry, movement, and music to create many vivid moments of theatrical storytelling. Old King Cymbeline, played by a hand-puppet manipulated and voiced by the Wicked Queen (Hilary Morrow,) is a comic—and deft—expression of her usurpation of his power. Shadow puppets add depth and mystery to the play's many dreams and prophecies.

Michael Winch's superb original score is a special treat, boosting the performance's energy and urgency. Played by two onstage musicians, a winding violin and thrumming cello provide variety and texture; rim shots that punctuate the occasional punchline remind us that Shakespeare, even in this bleakest of scenarios, doesn't lose his sense of humor.  

Stylized movement sequences lift the staging out of the ordinary: A dreamy court dance introduces us to the characters and the web of relationships. Combatants face-off using moves borrowed from Zulu stick fighting. The war between the Britons and Romans is represented by a punishing phrase of choreography—all squats and rolls and explosive thrusts of limbs—that is repeated over and over until the last Roman collapses, ragged and breathless.  

The young actors are at their best in these impressionistic, non-verbal moments; unburdened by the text, the playing becomes rich and personal—full of conflict and emotion. You begin to wish that the adaptation had substituted more of the language with this muscular storytelling.

In spite of her intentions to "correct the deficit" of Imogen's missing voice, McGrath delivers a rather straightforward, conservative approach to the play, with no script changes other than cuts any director might make. Though the production may be trying to investigate Imogen's will and potential, it doesn't answer the questions—either in text or staging—it claims to have raised.

The famous bedroom scene, in which the villainous Iachimo (Kiernan McGowan,) steals a bracelet from the sleeping Imogen (Katelyn Manfre,) plays out as nightmarish rape sequence. Wearing gloves with monstrously long fingers, Iachimo extricates the jewel from beneath the covers with gynecological precision. The scene might be fertile ground for the expression of Imogen's sense of violation and misuse, but the idea doesn't go anywhere. The event doesn't haunt her in any particular way; it isn't shown to drive subsequent decisions or create more psychological or behavioral complexity.

When we next see her, Imogen has traded in her fairy-tale gown for jeans and a T-shirt. Is the new wardrobe meant to suggest a shift from naiveté to knowledge? To signal a tonal change from idealism to hard-nosed realism? To draw a parallel between Imogen's struggle of harassment and silence and the current #metoo moment? Not one of these lines of inquiry, as fascinating as it might be, is entirely worked-out. Skinny jeans, by themselves, do not a modern girl make. As it is, this Imogen remains as uninformed and unaware as she is in the original play.  

By casting a woman in the role of Pisanio, Imogen's loyal servant, McGrath opens up a space to further explore a feminist reading of the play. The casting presents an opportunity to make foils of the two women: where Imogen is immobilized, Pisanio (Acacia Danielson) is all action and improvisation—she disobeys orders and out-maneuvers her masters. One of the few characters with anything resembling a moral backbone, she refuses to execute Imogen, organizes her disguise and escape, and sends her pursuers on a wild goose chase. A female Pisanio's outrage and energy would well-serve this adaptation; instead, Danielson's muted performance drains the role of its potential power. 

Shakespeare takes up plenty of space on the world's stages; he hardly suffers from a lack of representation. Our very own city boasts of two heavily-attended and well-funded institutions--The Shakespeare Theatre and Folger Shakespeare Theatre—who make it their business to ensure that his plays don't go unnoticed. The D.C. Women's Voices Theatre Festival was created to free up stage time, attention, and resources for new work by women who haven't yet established Shakespeare's spectacular track record.  If the company wanted to try its hand at Cymbeline, it could have done so at any time; it doesn't need the D.C. WVTF for that. But to remove Shakespeare as the author, McGrath would have needed to penetrate the source material with more precision and rigor. The whole enterprise feels a little bit like a cheat, as if Pointless is taking advantage of D.C. WVTF's P.R. and prestige without adhering to its mission.

Manfre's playbill bio says that she and McGrath intended to transform Imogen into a "fun, furious feminist in a farthingale." I wish they had been able to deliver on this promise. If it had kept faithful to this bold vision, Imogen might have earned a place among the best of the many deconstructions and adaptations at this year's D.C. WVTF.