Sharing Cymbeline, a community-sourced virtual project run by Shakespeare Link UK, has entered the action-packed, final half of Cymbeline. Submissions remain open for community performances of excerpts from the play's final act. In the videos below, directors of the Willow Globe Susanna Best and Philip Bowen (click here for our recent interview with Susanna and Philip!) recount the play's spectacular ending, giving potential community actors context for their performances. 

Act IV begins as Cloten arrives in the forest vowing violence against Innogen, who has taken refuge with Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus, while disguised as the boy Fidele. After a complicated skirmish in which Cloten meets his gruesome end, Innogen wakes in a flowered grave, marking one of the play's strangest, most heart-rending scenes. As Fidele, she is taken in by the Roman forces en route to Milford Haven, and the battle between Rome and Britain looms imminent. 

Act V is perhaps the play's most eventful act, somehow containing foiled murder plots, rapidly changing alliances, a raging battle across a unique geological feature, daring rescues, heroic reunions, and divine intervention in dream form. As Susanna puts it, "the last scene is too complicated to explain," so keep an eye out for soon-to-be-posted performances that will animate Cymbeline's exciting denouement.