Go! review

An organization that calls itself the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is under some obligation to present the work of the world’s greatest playwright if for no other reason than the historical value.

Hence, we have “Cymbeline,” and try as they might, even an all-star cast can’t help this play rise above the weaknesses of the script.

It’s not a total waste, however. The first act really is quite entertaining and features some of the best actors in the area. Amy Warner, whose notable roles in the past couple of years include an amazing turn as Martha in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” with this same company and Albee’s “The Goat” with New Stage Collective, here makes a deliciously wicked stepmother as Cymbeline’s queen. Sherman Fracher makes incredible split-second transformations as a withered seer who brightens when relating a vision. Company members Giles Davies, Jeremy Dubin, Chris Guthrie and Corinne Mohlenhoff all turn in fine comedic performances in the story of two lovers separated by politics.

The problems with the show belong entirely Shakespeare. For one thing, he trots out all of the cliches and plot devices found in many of his other plays: Women disguised as men and fooling those very close to them; twins separated from their parents at birth; a wager that calls into question a woman’s fidelity; etc.

All of this proceeds at a quick pace in the first act, but the second act is mostly filled with overwrought soliloquies and monologues and an interminable resolution in which each character explains the action of the first act in unbearable detail.

The company also gamely fills the show with references to classic fairy tales and modern (read “Disney”) adaptations. Posters in the CSC lobby provides some insight into that.

Davies, who plays the dim-witted stepson in “Cymbeline,” fares much better in his one-man rendering of “Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus,” running on the off-nights. This version hits hard on the major points of Mary Shelley’s story that is often lost in theatrical and movie adaptations, specifically how the story serves as an analogy to man’s relationship to his own creator.