Killing the Womanly Parts: NAATCO's Gender-Bending “Cymbeline”
Courtesy of the National Asian American Theater Company.
“I wish I could kill all womanly parts in me,” declares an irate Posthumus in the National Asian American Theater Company’s recent run of Cymbeline, deep into his infamous misogyny monologue. In this all-femme production, however, “he” is being played by a woman. Standing on the other side of gender, she decries her sex as the root of all evil, and it’s easy to forget she’s not a man.
Of all the classic plays to gender-bend, Cymbeline is perhaps the most compelling choice. One of Shakespeare’s wildest romances, the text is founded on the wrath and lust of spiteful men, driving the plot forward with bouts of rage and jealousy. Imogen, a princess, is falsely accused of infidelity and ordered to be killed, forced out into the wilderness of rural Wales. What, director Stephen Brown-Fried asks, does it mean for the locker-room objectification that got her there to come from a woman’s mouth? Or when it’s a woman teetering on the verge of committing sexual assault? NAATCO, a company founded to protest the lack of roles available to Asian American actors, specializes in reframing theatrical classics, staging them with entirely Asian American casts. In this winter 2025 production, they showcase an extraordinarily talented lineup of Asian American women, delivering Shakespearean lines in snappy new “translations” by Andrea Thome. In this moment, just seeing them onstage reads like an act of resistance.
Courtesy of the National Asian American Theater Company.
Translation itself is something of a controversial subject among Shakespearean scholars, who denounce its reduction of the poetry of the work. In this case, translation does not mean the same thing as abbreviation—NAATCO does not cut even the infamously strange scene where Jupiter descends from the heavens—but it feels similar, making it a breeze to sit through the 2-hour-45-minute runtime. Thome retains all the play’s tight thematic elements in her updated text, and, shockingly, many of the lines that feel the most modern are taken closely from the original script. “Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go not together,” becomes the only slightly altered, “as I always tell you, her beauty and her brain do not go together.” One doesn’t even know what they’re missing while they’re watching it. A quick reread of the original, however, makes us miss it all the same.
Many of the standout lines, prompting loud guffaws from the audience, owe their success to the animated performances from the cast, whom the program makes clear is fundamentally an ensemble. Characters as wide-ranging in both importance and stage time as Posthumus (KK Moggie) and a Soothsayer (Narea Kang) become equally singular and beloved by audiences. Cloten (Jeena Yi), son to the evil queen and Imogen’s relentless suitor, is, here, suited in a floor-length golden puffer cape, whining and pouting in comedic perfection every time “he” comes onstage. Why, we’re forced to ask, would actors like this ever be limited by their gender or race?
Cloten, obnoxious and entitled, is complicated when being played by a woman, but no one is as interesting as Iachimo (Anna Ishida), one of Shakespeare’s most subtly sinister villains. Attempting to trick Posthumus into thinking Imogen has been unfaithful, “he” climbs out of a trunk in her room during the night, and the chilling scene that follows culminates with “him” looking underneath her shirt. Iachimo, even if he is being played by a woman, is all man here—the searing dread of the moment depends on it. Imogen, forced to crossdress to protect her identity, is told that she “must forget to be a woman,” and, as a result, cease to be one. The entire show has proved that gender is nothing but a performance. What, really, is the difference between Iachimo acting like a man and being one?
Courtesy of the National Asian American Theater Company.
Brown-Fried’s idea to use all-femme actors is not necessarily a new one—the current Cymbeline at Shakespeare’s Globe, for example, also recasts leading roles to be played by women. NAATCO, however, incorporates gender and race in equal measure. The company, which works to demonstrate the indelible importance of Asian Americans in the theater, often showcases entirely AAPI casts in Western classics, proving how much productions lose out on by stereotyping “racial” roles. The cultural subversion of this choice has ebbed and flowed in the time since it was founded in 1989. At the moment, it’s downright political. In the wake of the most recent election, Asian Americans have seen a sharp uptick in online hate and discrimination, encouraged by the racism and anti-immigrant sentiments of the current administration. At NAATCO, Shakespeare’s villains are the only things to be afraid of.
Any modern Shakespearen adaptation lives and dies by its added elements—music, choreography, some element of freedom they’re able to ornament on the text. NAATCO’s Cymbeline finds its moment of artistic exploration in a harmonically beautiful mourning song sung, in part, for the only character who does not survive in this magic-filled world of rebirth. It’s an important reminder of the loose ends, which are otherwise easily forgotten, and a wonderfully attuned directorial choice. Brown-Fried doubles down on his innovation by making fight choreography during the abrupt war use scarves instead of swords, a uniquely soft visual that reflects the broader aesthetic of the show.
When it does finally come to a close, the binaries that were so striking at the beginning have largely faded away. We no longer see women playing men, or Asian Americans taking on a white canon—we simply see actors, telling an exceptional story. Killing the womanly parts in yourself, it turns out, is just a matter of pretending.
