A few things that happened in my staged reading of Cymbeline yesterday
We did the whole thing in the back room of a restaurant with psychadelic-colored murals of dogs all over the walls of the room
The opening scene was of a tipsy Shakespeare bs-ing the plot of his newest play to a bartender, making it up as he went along
Iachimo was wearing a sign that said “Iago” around his neck, which Shakespeare quickly scribbed ‘-mo’ onto
Innogen hitting Iachimo on the head repeatedly with a giant inflatable hammer after he made an advance on her
Bartender spraying Iachimo with water every time he gets too turned on while creeping in Innogen’s room
The ‘Psycho’ theme tune played when Posthumus thought Innogen was disloyal and Shakespeare hung an ‘Othello’ sign around his neck
Cloten and the musicians singing ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’
Running gag of every time Innogen introduced herself as ‘Fidele,’ people mishearing it as Adele and singing a snippet of one of her songs
Belarius dressing and talking like a cowboy, Guiderius and Arviragus (the two lost princes) acting like the princes in Into the Woods singing “Agony”
Every time Cloten says something wrong, Shakespeare hits ‘wrong’ buzzer noise
Guiderius and Arviragus singing “Mmm Whatcha Sayyy” over Innogen’s body
Guiderius being handed Thor’s hammer by Shakespeare during the duel with Cloten ‘because he is worthy to inlay heaven with stars’
“What hast thou done?” (Fumbling to turn the page in the script) “Uhhh… something gross, I bet… Oh! Cut off one Cloten’s head!”
Cloten’s headless body being a sweatshirt and leggings stuffed with pillows and clothes that totally fell apart while Innogen was shaking it and gesturing around with it
When it looks like the Romans are about to beat the Britons in the battle, Shakespeare pauses the scene, gives Caius Lucius’ sword to Belarius and replaces it with a rubber chicken, makes Iachimo punch himself and another Roman hold his sword backward, then restarts the scene and the Britons win.
The ghosts in the dream sequences are all wearing large shawls and scarves and waving their arms around going ‘oooooh’ and talking in weird British accents
Shakespeare himself runs in as Jupiter, bearing the tiniest, derpiest looking toy eagle. The prophecy is a Lion King blu-Ray. The ghosts all cheerfully said, “Thanks, Jupiter” in unison, waving at him
The whole last scene is Shakespeare just running back and forth scribbling on post-it notes and handing them to the characters onstage to read, trying to keep up with the pace of the scene and tie all the loose ends together
The play ends with Shakespeare crumpling up his script and throwing it away
Oh, I forgot to mention, my boyfriend played Shakespeare
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