APPENDIX B
The History of the Play
Cymbeline was first printed in 1623, at the end of the First Folio, among the tragedies, and under the title. The Tragedie of Cymbeline. The text was taken from a prompt-book copy, and was divided into acts and scenes; but it was so carelessly printed that it is full of obscure and perplexing readings. In this play Shakespeare seems to have had the assistance of a coadjutor, who was responsible for the Vision of Posthumus in Act V, which is not an integral part of the action, and perhaps for portions of the Belarius plot.
The play was probably first produced in 1610; in style, diction, and versification it resembles the two romantic comedies, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, which appeared in 1610 and 1611, respectively. Dr. Simon Forman, astrologer, quack, and theatregoer, who in his Book of Plays kept a record of the plays he attended, gives a synopsis of the plot of 'Cimbalin' in an undated entry which follows an entry dated May 15, 1611, recording a performance of 'The Winters Talle at the glob.' On January 1, 1633/4, 'Cymbeline was acted at court by the King's players. Well likte by the Kinge.'[1]
Irreverent hands were laid upon Cymbeline in 1682 by Tom Durfey, who attempted to fashion it to the taste of his generation under the title. The Injured Princess or The Fatal Wager. The names of the characters are changed—Imogen becomes Eugenia, Posthumus is Ursaces, and Iachimo is Shatillion; new characters are introduced, among them Clarina, who is Eugenia's confidante and daughter of Pisanio, and a drunken friend of Cloten's named Iachimo. Pisanio believes in Imogen's guilt; the lascivious Cloten and his ribald friend kidnap Clarina with evil intent; there is little left of Shakespeare's play but the outline of the plot. This perversion of Cymbeline held the stage until 1720, when Shakespeare's play was produced at the new Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre.
But in 1755 another attempt was made, by Charles Marsh, to refashion the 'old and crude' play; and in 1759 still another. This time the culprit was the Professor of Poetry at Oxford, William Hawkins, M.A., who possessed 'so thorough a veneration for the great Father of the English stage' that he 'retained, in many places, the very language of the original author.' Fortunately 'unprecedented difficulties and discouragements in the theatre' prevented a long run at Covent Garden Theatre. Two years later, in 1761, Garrick made the first of his many appearances as Posthumus in Shakespeare's play. The play ran for sixteen nights, and the Dramatic Censor stated that Garrick's astonishing talents were never more happily exerted. In 1767 and 1770 Mrs. Barry played Imogen to Garrick's Posthumus. John Philip Kemble first played Posthumus in 1785; Mrs. Siddons first appeared as Imogen in 1787; and Charles Kemble, who had appeared as Polydore in 1812 played Posthumus in 1825. Macready played Posthumus in 1818. From the time of Garrick on, Cymbeline seems to have been a favorite play for one-night, benefit performances. Helen Faucit was one of the great Imogens of the middle of the nineteenth century, and Ellen Terry's 'last great part on the Lyceum stage' was the rôle of Imogen in Henry Irving's gorgeous production in 1896. Irving chose to play the part of Iachimo, and seems to have made an indifferent success in the rôle. Popular enthusiasm was devoted to Miss Terry's Imogen and to the setting by Alma Tadema.
While Garrick and the Kembles were using Cymbeline almost yearly in England, the new and struggling theatres in the American colonies and states followed their illustrious example. From 1767 to 1793 eight revivals of Cymbeline occurred along our Atlantic seaboard, three in New York, two in Philadelphia, one in Boston, one in Annapolis, and one in Charleston, South Carolina. One hundred years later Cymbeline again became popular on the American stage. Mary Shaw Hamblin, who died in 1873, was a famous Imogen in the sixties. Adelaide Neilson in the seventies, Modjeska in the eighties, and Margaret Mather in the nineties kept the play familiar to American audiences. In 1906 Viola Allen again revived it, and in 1923 Edward H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe added it to their repertoire.[2]