In my previous entry, I wrote about the conventional use of cross dressing and disguise on Shakespeare’s stage, especially in the comedies.  While Cymbeline was originally grouped with the other comedies, it (along with plays such as The Tempest and Pericles) has a somewhat troublesome relationship with the genre of comedy, what with its decapitated bodies and tortured young girls appearing onstage.  At the same time, what could be more in line with comedy than the happy ending, the way it all turns out just fine (despite how bad things have gotten in the course of the play), the happy reunion of the family, and such?  The happy ending prevents us from naming the play a tragedy, and the appearance of the gods onstage certainly seems to rule it out as a history. Apparently comedy is all we’ve got left, and so we take our headless corpses and ill-used maids and make our way to the door marked “Comedy,” however uncomfortably.

Though marking Cymbeline a comedy comes with some level of discomfort, it is undeniable that this play makes excellent use of the conventions of cross dressing and disguise that are so prevalent in Shakespeare’s comedies.  Not only does Imogen -- one of Shakespeare’s strongest female characters -- successfully make her way through the world dressed as the boy Fidele, but we have Cloten dressing in the garments of Posthumus (who is meanwhile disguised as a peasant), and  Belarius/Morgan, Guiderius/Polydore, and Arviragus/Cadwal live for years disguised so well that the boys don’t know their own identities.  The exchange of one disguise for another, one set of garments for another, goes on so quickly in the play that it is easy to get confused.

The play doesn’t stop at changes of costumes on the bodies of the actors.  Throughout the play, there is a thread of verbal play connected to the old idiom “The clothes make the man” (see 4.1.2-4 and 4.2.83-85)  In the interaction between Cloten, Imogen, Posthumus, and Pisanio, garments and clothing become central in much of the conversation and banter.  When Imogen tells Cloten that she values the “meanest garment” of Posthumus more than she does Cloten (2.3.135-138), this forms the impetus for Cloten’s later plans for revenge (4.1).  He wears the garments of Posthumus, in an attempt to usurp his rival’s place.  Indeed, it can be said that he does indeed usurp the place of Posthumus, at least in regards to the prophecy/threat he utters when he says, “Posthumus, thy head, which now is growing upon thy shoulders, shall within this hour be off” (4.1.15-17).  Perhaps such a threat was not wisely spoken, considering that Cloten has become Posthumus by donning the garments.  Indeed, upon seeing his headless body in the clothes of Posthumus, even Imogen is unable to distinguish the two.  The clothes, it seems, do indeed make the man in this play.

Oddly enough, Cloten seems confused by this, even as he tries to take advantage of clothing to make himself into another.  Not only does he seem unaware of the curse he’s brought on himself in predicting the beheading of Posthumus within the hour, but he seems to have forgotten that he cannot be both Posthumus and Cloten at the same time.  Indeed, when he meets Guiderius, he thinks that he should be known as Cloten just by his clothes (4.2.82), apparently forgetting that his clothes now proclaim a new identity for him, that of Posthumus.  Conveniently, Posthumus has left this identity available to Cloten, availing himself first of “Italian weeds” and later the garments of “a Briton peasant” (5.1.23-24).   The role vacated by Posthumus has left his identity open for Cloten to overtake.  And it is taken on till the end. 

Cloten, it seems, is not the only one somewhat muddled about his own identity.  His plan for revenge, in one sense, works.  He does, finally, receive the affection that Imogen has always reserved for Posthumus, though it is only declared when Cloten is dead and decapitated (4.2.309-335).  And, of course, she thinks it is the corpse of Posthumus that receives her declarations of love.  Perhaps this affection that Cloten has craved and demanded throughout the play is given somewhat later than he would have preferred, but it is notable that Imogen is fully taken in by the clothes that he wears, and that it is his blood that she uses to color her cheeks (ln. 335).  The mock-blazon which she speaks over the body seems to confirm what Cloten has already told us -- that he and Posthumus are more or less indistinguishable, except for the clothes that they wear and their stations in life (4.1.9-13).

It is easy to imagine this played out upon the stage.  If Cloten and Posthumus are clothed in ways that are distinct from each other, but the actors cast in the roles share a similar body type and shape, then the changes of clothing can have a very dramatic effect.  One can easily imagine this playing out the idea that “the clothes make the man” in a very overt manner.  In a Cheek by Jowl performance of Cymbeline, the roles of Cloten and Posthumus were both played by Tom Hiddleton.  While the review (linked) of the play overall is less than glowing, the notion of doubling these two characters does present some intriguing possibilities.  On the other hand, in the Hudson Shakespeare Company production, we have a black Cloten and a white Posthumus.  One can imagine the comic possibilities as Imogen speaks of the hand, leg, body that she knows so well.

I think that costumes and garments often function this way in staged performances.  Cymbeline is one of those plays that makes exceptional use of the potentials involved with disguise and garments on the stage.

Articles in this series:         [1]         [2]          [3]         [4]

©2007 Shelly Bryant

Citations from the play are based on David Bevington’s anthology

Bevington, David.  Shakespeare:  The Late Romances.  Toronto:  Bantam Books, 1980.