History Theatre / Cymbeline

** David Garrick revived the play in 1761 with his own significant changes. The text was significantly cut, with 500 lines reportedly removed from the final act alone. Visions and gods were omitted, in the belief that Garrick's audience didn't want those supernatural elements. The new version became part of Garrick's standard repertoire for the rest of his career, with over a hundred performances spanning fifteen years. The changes didn't endure for too long after his retirement, though.

** David Garrick revived the play in 1761 with his own significant changes. The text was significantly cut, with 500 lines reportedly removed from the final act alone. Dream visions and gods were omitted, in the belief that Garrick's audience didn't want those elements. The new version became part of Garrick's standard repertoire for the rest of his career, with over a hundred performances spanning fifteen years. The changes didn't endure for too long after his retirement, though.

** The play was significantly rewritten by Thomas D'Urfey when he revived it in 1682, almost fifty years after it was last performed. Pisanio gets a new subplot, and is blinded by Cloten after he kills one of Cloten's servants who's menacing his daughter. Posthumus is renamed to Ursaces, Imogen is renamed to Eugenia and Iachimo becomes the French villain Shatillon. D'Urfey also significantly rewrote the last two acts, removed Zeus and the prophecy, and renamed the play ''The Injured Princess'', hiding Shakespeare's identity as the playwright. D'Urfey's version became the default for the next fifty years, with a revival in 1718 giving it a new lease of life. The original version of ‘’Cymbeline'' eventually returned to theatres in 1746.

''Cymbeline'', a tragicomedy by Creator/WilliamShakespeare, is one of the Bard's more obscure plays. Borrowed, barely, from Celtic lore and from a story from ''Literature/TheDecameron'', it tells the story of a king who rebels against Rome because of his evil wife. For unrelated reasons, his daughter spends most of the play cross-dressing and looking for her banished husband. Actually, [[SecondaryCharacterTitle it's more about the latter than the former]].

[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cymbeline_272.jpg]]

''Cymbeline'', a tragicomedy by Creator/WilliamShakespeare, is one the Bard's more obscure plays. Borrowed, barely, from Celtic lore and from a story from ''Literature/TheDecameron'', it tells the story of a king who rebels against Rome because of his evil wife. For unrelated reasons, his daughter spends most of the play cross-dressing and looking for her banished husband. Actually, [[SecondaryCharacterTitle it's more about the latter than the former]].

* IncestIsRelative: The Queen convinces Cymbeline to join her in persuading Imogen to marry her step-brother Cloten.

* {{Postmodernism}}: "Shall's have a play of this?"
* RagsToRoyalty

Basically, the play is a mishmash of plots Shakespeare regularly used in other plays. One interesting aspect of it, though, is that the characters can be read as [[RealitySubtext allusions to Jacobean figures]]. James of England is Cymbeline, who wishes for unity and peace. The play also emphasizes the concept of "Britain" -- the word appears more in this play than any other Shakespeare play, while the word "England" appears not a once.

''Cymbeline'', a tragicomedy by Creator/WilliamShakespeare, is one the Bard's more obscure plays. Borrowed, barely, from Celtic lore, it tells the story of a king who rebels against Rome because of his evil wife. For unrelated reasons, his daughter spends most of the play cross-dressing and looking for her banished husband. Actually, [[SecondaryCharacterTitle it's more about the latter than the former]].

%% * TwoLinesNoWaiting

* {{Arcadia}}

* {{Expy}}: Iachimo essentially means "little Iago"; some have argued he's supposed to be a toned-down version of ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'''s infamous villain. Like Iago, Iachimo sets out to make a husband suspicious of his wife's fidelity, [[spoiler:though in ''Cymbeline'', tragedy is averted and the couple is reconciled at the end.]]

* {{Infodump}}: By the time he wrote this play, Shakespeare really couldn't be bothered to find an elegant way to do backstory. Good luck following the dialogue between the two gentlemen at the beginning of Act One.

* IntimateMarks: Imogen, the heroine, has a mole under one of her breasts. Iachimo is able to falsely win a bet that he could seduce her, by spying on her while sleeping, and noting this distinguishing mark.

* OffWithHisHead: Thus ends the life of [[spoiler: Cloten in battle with Guiderius.]]

* SuicideByCop: Ancient version--Posthumus, feeling guilty for causing Imogen's death (or at least he thinks that he did), plans to die in battle with the Romans.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: The Queen tells Imogen she's not a WickedStepmother... without anyone else broaching the subject in the first place.

* TwoLinesNoWaiting
* WickedStepmother: Lampshaded in that one of the Queen's first lines is declaring that she is not like the wicked stepmothers of the tales. (She ''totally is''.)
* WrongfulAccusationInsurance

* HonorBeforeReason

** So to sum things up: Clotus just happened to be near Belarius's family, and just happened to say the exact wrong thing at the very worst moment to say it, and just happened to be rude to a man hot-tempered enough to kill him over it, and just happened to be killed through beheading, and just happened to have his head buried in a different spot than his body, and just happened to be dressed exactly like Posthumus, and just happened to have a body near-identical to Posthumus's.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Posthumus, in typical Shakespearean tradition (see also Theatre/{{Othello}} and [[Theatre/TheWintersTale Leontes]]).

* FauxDeath

* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen

* NotWhatItLooksLike

* SweetPollyOliver

* OffWithHisHead: Thus ends the life of [[spoiler: Cloten in battle with ]]

* DeathSeeker: Posthumus becomes one out of remorse over his attempted orchestration of Imogen's death (which, unbeknownst to him, did not succeed). He returns to fight for Britain, strips himself of his armour and fights against the heavily-armed Roman soldiers, but successfully fends them off and rescues the king. He then dresses up as a Roman soldier and tries to get killed in battle, but is instead captured.

* DeathSeeker: Posthumus becomes one out of remorse over his orchestration of Imogen's death (which, unbeknownst to him, did not succeed). He returns to fight for Britain, strips himself of his armour and fights against the heavily-armed Roman soldiers, but successfully fends them off and rescues the king. He then dresses up as a Roman soldier and tries to get killed in battle, but is instead captured.

* DeathSeeker: Posthumus becomes one after mistakenly believing his orchestration of Imogen's death successful. He returns to fight for Britain, with the aim either of dying in the war or of being put to death by Cymbeline.

** So why doesn't the physical body strike her as being strangely unlike Posthumus's body? Because Cloten's body just happens to be similar enough to Postuhums's to be confused for it by Imogen in the state she's in.

We learn that Cymbeline's Queen has convinced him to stop paying tribute to Rome, so Rome is about to attack. Due to circumstances[[note]]The Queen, who is evil, gives Imogen a potion that Imogen believes is medicine but the Queen knew was a deadly poison except it turns out that the doctor who the Queen asked for poison didn't trust her and just gave her a sleeping potion; while she's sleeping, Imogen's brothers kill the Queen's son, who has the hots for Imogen and was out looking for her, and when she wakes up she thinks he's Posthumus. ''Whew!''[[/note]], Imogen believes Posthumus is dead, and Posthumus regrets murdering her; she mourns, and he tries to kill himself by first fighting for Britain against Rome, then switching into Roman garb when the Britons win. Jupiter, the god, shows up to say he'll protect Posthumus. The next day, Posthumus is brought out as a prisoner, and one by one the cast shows up to explain the plot. Everyone lives happily ever after, except the Queen, who dies; with her dead, Cymbeline decides to start paying tribute to Rome again.

* [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]]: Cymbeline and Lucius

* HiddenBackupPrince : Two of them, actually.

* IntimateMarks: Imogen, the heroine, has a mole under one of her breasts. Iachmo is able to falsely win a bet that he could seduce her, by spying on her while sleeping, and noting this distinguishing mark.

* ItWasAGift : Innogen gives Posthumus a ring, Posthumus gives Innogen a bracelet. (Iachimo effectively steals both.)
* LampshadeHanging: The Queen tells Imogen she's not a WickedStepmother (she's lying, of course).

* SecondaryCharacterTitle
* SignatureItemClue: Iachimo "proves" that he seduced Posthumus' wife by showing him a bracelet which he claims the wife gave to him; in reality he sneaked into her bedchamber while she was asleep and stole it.
* SuicideByCop: Ancient version -- Posthumus, feeling guilty for (so he thinks) killing Imogen, plans to die in battle with the Romans.

* ThoseTwoGuys: The creatively named First Lord and Second Lord who exist to explain the prologue and to play the StraightMan to TheClown Cloten. Productions frequently have the same two actors play First and Second Soldier, and First and Second Jailer who have similar parts.

** WickedStepmother: Lampshaded in that one of the Queen's first lines is declaring that she is not like the wicked stepmothers of the tales. She totally is.

* LaughablyEvil: Cloten is amusing in a stupid thug kind of way. Even when yelling about how he will [[{{Squick}} rape his sister while wearing her lover's clothes to prove he's more worthy of her]].

* HiddenBackupPrince

* ItWasAGift

* ParentalMarriageVeto

* {{Expy}}: Iachimo essentially means "little Iago"; some have argued he's supposed to be a toned-down version of ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'''s infamous villain.

Basically, the play is a mishmash of plots Shakespeare regularly used in other plays. One interesting aspect of it, though, is that the characters can be read as [[RealitySubtext allusions to Jacobean figures]]. James of England is Cymbeline; his goal of unity and peace is upset by the warmongering Queen (Elizabeth I). When the Queen dies, peace resumes. The play also emphasizes the concept of "Britain" -- the word appears more in this play than any other Shakespeare play, while the word "England" appears not a once; James was a big pusher of British unity.