Cymbeline may seem an unlikely title for a Western a la Gunsmoke, Bonanza, or The Rifleman, but William Shakespeare and the American West prove an inspired mix in Antaeus Theatre Company’s 2025-26 season opener.

Despite being one of Shakespeare’s less frequently revived plays, this one (reputedly his fifth-from-last) features one Shakesperean trademark after another, including (in no particular order):

a) A villain who plots to make our hero suspect his young wife of adultery.
b) A spirited young heroine who dons male apparel as disguise.
c) A potion that simulates death without that pesky fatal result.
d) A royal father who rejects his beloved daughter.
e) Children separated at birth and reunited at long last in adulthood.
f) An ambitious queen without a moral scruple to her name.

Unlike Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear, however, Cymbeline’s title character plays only a supporting role in the proceedings.

It is in fact King Cymbeline’s daughter Imogen (Elinor Gunn) around which our tale revolves, one which begins with her wedding to the nobly-raised orphan Posthumous (Peter Mendoza), a marriage which does not sit at all well with Cymbeline’s second wife, the evil Queen (Eve Gordon), who wishes for her own selfish reasons to see her son Cloten (Randolph Thompson) wed to the royal heiress.

 Succumbing to the seductive Queen’s persuasive ways, Cymbeline (Bernard K. Addison) exiles the insufficiently royal Posthumous to Rome, where the young man’s supposed friend Iachimo (Gerardo Joseph), in Iago-like fashion, decides to convince Posthumous that his wife has betrayed him with another man.

 This being accomplished, a vengeful Posthumous sends his servant Pisania (Desirée Mee Jung) to kill Imogen, but Pisania goes against her master’s will and convinces Imogen to disguise herself in male apparel as “Fidele,” the better to prove her innocence.

In short order, Fidele has been befriended by Arviragus (Anja Racić) and Guiderius (Teodora Avramovic), a pair of rustic brothers who we soon learn are her very own siblings, kidnapped in their youth by the exiled Belarius as payback for Cymbeline’s false accusation of treason.

Meanwhile, the wicked Queen plots to poison both Cymbeline and Imogen with the sleeping potion Dr. Cornelius (JD Cullum) has, unbeknownst to her, substituted for the considerably more venomous mixture she had in mind.

Put all of this together and you’ve got one of Shakespeare’s most complicated, if not downright schizophrenic, plots, but one that’s a whole lot of fun at Antaeus, where director Nike Doukas’s inspired concept yields multiple rewards beginning with a scenic design by Ann Sheffield that captures the wide open spaces of the American West to vibrant perfection under Vickie J. Scott’s evocative lighting with a little help from projection designer Nicholas Santiago.

Julie Keen’s costumes range from queenly finery to buckskin and boots and John McElveney’s props from rifles to pistols to bows and arrows, and composer/sound designer John Ballinger backs up the whole shebang with a score that recalls Dimitri Tiomkin of Duel In The Sun, Red River, and High Noon fame.

Performances are all-around splendid, from Gunn’s luminous, plucky, deeply-felt Imogen to Mendoza’s stalwart and studly Posthumus to Jung’s fabulously feisty Pisania to Joseph’s deliciously dastardly Iachimo to Addison’s commandingly kingly Cymbeline to scene-stealer Thompson’s lively and loquacious Cloten, who gets to return (head intact) as one of Two British Captains.

Gordon ignites the stage as the most conniving of Queens before winning us over as the warmhearted Wild Westerner Belaria, Cullum dazzles in a total of five roles, each with his own distinctive accent and demeanor (and as guitarist as well), and both Avramovic and Racić double delightfully, the former as saucy saloon hostess Frenchie and boyish charmer Arviragus, the latter as a posh First Lord and macho mountain man Guiderius.

 Last but not least, the entire cast vocalizes harmoniously to several musical ditties with lyrics by Shakespeare and melodies by music director Ballinger.

Jenn O’Brien is assistant director. Maya Aragon and Olivia Shu are assistant set designers and Elijah Frankle is associate lighting designer. Claire Fogle is stage manager and Jessica Osorio is assistant stage manager.

Cymbeline may not be one of Shakespeare’s best-known works, but that doesn’t mean it’s not without multiple merits of it own, all of which are on full display, Antaeus-style, in Nike Doukas’s Wild West take on this rarely-revived gem.

Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, 110 East Broadway, Glendale.
www.Antaeus.org

–Steven Stanley
October 25, 2025

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Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, The Antaeus Company, William Shakespeare