Sofa Spotlight - Cymberline, William Shakespeare

I feel like I’m doing well at my Shakespeare challenge this year (if you missed it, I want to read all his plays in 2020). This is my latest read and probably the one that I’ve got emotionally involved with the most. There’s a lot that goes on and I couldn’t really work out if this play falls into the tragedy or the comedy camp. Lots of places put them in one of these but I couldn’t find a consensus and to be honest I couldn’t work out if it was meant to make me laugh or cry. Mostly I was left thinking “don’t be so silly.”

Anyway the play itself is about Imogen and her husband Posthumus. You know it’s not going to end well when it turns out they’ve married secretly. In true Shakespeare style there’s a lot of mistaken identity and people who think other people are dead, when actually they are just in a mysterious comatose state that mimics death. One of these one of them will get buried alive! Imogen and Posthumus are separated by different events and the play is about how they are reunited against, what I think are staggeringly intense odds.

I’d certainly recommend giving this one a read. It’s easy to follow, and some excellent scenes in there.