Cymbeline – 21 January 2025

Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare’s least frequently produced pieces. As I watched NAATCO’s production, I wondered why. The text is, essentially, elements of every Shakespearean tragedy, but with a happy ending. In modern western theatre, that tends to be a recipe for success. It’s got a little bit of madness, plenty of parental drama, conniving royalty, classism, characters disguising themselves as another gender, trustworthy messengers, arrogance, a journey in the woods, a pair of seemingly ill fated lovers, a long drawn out fight, too many explanations, new kings, and a wedding. Cymbeline is as Shakespearean as Shakespeare can be. NAATCO’s choice to do an all Asian femme cast helped elucidate the prejudices and biases of its time by removing western audience power dynamics. Without them, the story was beautiful. But, in  thinking about them afterwards, the story would be revolting. Murder over chastity? The best quality of a woman being her virginity? Why tell a story like this?

With an all femme Asian cast, it was less insulting to talk of virtue and honor. Between women, it felt less like an intact hymen and more like an intact love. With sexual dalliance not meaning penetration and potential pregnancy, women defending each other’s honor, with jewels and by sword if necessary, felt fierce and feminist. It helped that Imogen (Jennifer Lim) presented with an enthusiastic luster and genuine love for life (Shakespeare’s women are often pathetic in their love sickness – Lim firmly not so). It also helped that the Asian inspired decorative soft goods (Ant Ma), lighting (Yiyuan Li), and very deliberate costuming (Mariko Ohigashi) made the violence stylized and meaningful, not loud and senseless with too many places to look to properly see what’s happening (as is customary for modern staging of Shakespearean battles).

NAATCO instead threw us a whole new world of Asian stereotypes to think about. In some respects, it felt like “fill in the blank.” Asian women are _____. Soft and feminine. Strong and unyielding. Overly expressive. Minimally expressive. Hyper sexualized. Assumed to be sexually ignorant. Hierarchical thinkers. Just one of many. Boyish. Girlish. Clumsy. Obedient. Assimilating. Loyal. Learned. Making mistakes. Proud to accept recognition. Apologetically uncommitted. Accommodating. Closed off. Asian women are _____. Everything. Yet somehow each character still embodies a stereotype westerners hold about Asian women. This one, the masculine lesbian. That one, the delicate flower. Cymbeline is a space that demands that we think about what it is we think it means to be an Asian woman.

It seems to mean being a contradiction, holding space for beauty and strength, because separating them is a western ideal not an eastern ideological concept of a balanced universe. If each unique character resonates as an Asian femme, then the possibilities of what an Asian femme can be our infinitely larger than our closed minds imagine. They are limitless. 

The breadth and depth of NAATCO’s production of Cymbeline is astoundingly beautiful, in that it effortlessly removes the stereotypes we are used to seeing (and cringing about) in Shakespeare’s work and instead uses these words and this story as a vehicle to point out stereotypes that are more frequently believed in today’s world, despite being equally wrong. The diversity of this production proves that race and gender do not define what a person can be or how a person can be seen. Rather, it offers an incredible tale of empowerment showing that we still have work to do to advocate for Asian femme presenting actresses in the modern theatre world. They are truly capable of playing any part. This production of Cymbeline is a call to action for casting directors everywhere to stop under utilizing Asian women because of stereotypes that are perceived and should not be believed. Cymbeline is a great reminder to be mindful of our preconceived notions and the way that our biases affect who can be seen and in what capacity.

I attended this performance on a press pass from David Gersten & Associates.