Review Excerpts
“‘REVIEW OF CYMBELINE’…Standouts in the cast include…Randall Duk Kim, so effective in Golden Child is a strong and buffed presence as Belarius….”
–Roma Torre, NY 1 (8/17/1998)
“‘FAIRY-TALE PLOTTINGS OF A ROYAL FAMILY’…Mr. Serban brings his fertile imagination to the Delacorte Theater, where his production opened last night, and creates a wonderfully frisky ‘Cymbeline’ in the open air that offers a challenge to those who dismiss the work, written in the last phase of Shakespeare’s career, as trivial and fatuous….Mr. Foster and Ms. Goodman,…look great, especially Ms. Goodman, in a gorgeous cape of quills that identifies the irredeemably evil Queen as a bird of prey, but neither has a real opportunity to let loose. The same cannot be said of Randall Duk Kim, playing a bare-chested Belarius the exile from court who has stolen Cymbeline’s sons and presides over a rusticated subplot. Mr. Kim gives a powerfully affecting account of this doting father by theft; he confers a true nobility on his selfless act of family restoration at play’s end….”
–Peter Marks, THE NEW YORK TIMES (8/17/1998)
“‘BARD MAKES A SPLASH IN CENTRAL PARK’…Further exploring fractured families, Shakespeare introduces a banished lord, Belarius (Randall Duk Kim), who lives with Imogen’s two brothers, whom he kidnapped 20 years earlier and who believe he’s their father. Here, too, fierce love and the healing power of forgiveness speak to us directly in this wondrous production.”
–Aileen Jacobson, NEWSDAY (8/17/1998)
“‘TROUBLED KINGDOM; QUEEN OF THEATER’…The action in fresh, natural Wales makes use of that wide green. The three noble, sprightly savages (paternal Randall Duk Kim, filial Adam Greer and Andrew Garman–all fine) enact for us one of Shakespeare’s pastoral but finally inadequate paradises, this one filled with bows and venison carcasses, a girl masquerading as a boy, and clean, kind hearts….”
–Donald Lyons, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (8/19/1998)
“‘SNAP, CRACKLE, FIZZ’ Director Andrei Serban said recently in The New York Times that he hoped the audience would come away from his production of Cymbeline ‘with a vast range of impressions about human life’–a grand ambition. But while I’m not sure I left with any insight into human life, I certainly did have a vast range of impressions about Serban’s cluttered, grab-bag take on Shakespeare’s dreamy, convoluted drama….Serban has more luck with straightforward naturalism; when his blurry conceptualism takes a backseat and the actors are allowed to act, Cymbeline achieves a lovely simplicity, especially in the scenes with the banished Belarius (a buff, well-spoken Randall Duk Kim)….”
–Erik Jackson, TIME OUT NEW YORK (8/20-27/1998)
“‘STRICTLY FOR LAUGHS’…But there is also unimpeachable work from Randall Duk Kim as Belarius,…”
–John Simon, NEW YORK MAGAZINE (8/31/1998)
“‘BRITISH PUZZLES’…Enter Andrei Serban, trafficker in the ritual and the visceral. Enter, also, Central Park, a space that makes more sense for Cymbeline than for almost any other Shakespeare play. Much of the action takes place outdoors, and the problematic tonal shifts are far easier to tolerate in a parklike atmosphere….A circle of greensward, a stand of trees, a sand pit, and an encircling lagoon are all the set we get or need….An even more shining example of poetry in action is Randall Duk Kim’s Belarius, infusing the role with a zest, and its lines with a feisty bitterness, that quickly takes the curse off its tendency to preach….”
–Michael Feingold, VILLAGE VOICE (9/1/1998)
“‘CYMBELINE’…Randall Duk Kim is marvelous (as always) as the banished courtier Belarius, even though his healthy physique, ungrizzled face and hair belie the anonymity of his supposedly radically changed appearance….”
–Adasha Greenwood, AISLE SAY (1998)
