For Clive Barnes of the New York Post, "Perhaps the prime virtues of Lamos' elegant, eloquent staging (and the man is among the finest Shakespearean directors in the world) are its grace, speed and total intelligibility. More than any of the many productions of 'Cymbeline' I've seen, it has an immediacy that grips, grasps and tenaciously holds. He is blessed with two essential assets. The first is his design team, giving us Michael Yeargan's otherworldly and audaciously theatrical settings, Jess Goldstein's carefully and beautifully apt costuming, Brian MacDevitt's sensuous lighting, and the quietly bewitching music of Mel Marvin. Then, of course, there is his cast. The three principals are splendid. Martha Plimpton's gutsy yet vulnerable Imogen, Michael Cerveris as her wronged and poetically distraught husband Posthumus, and his betrayer Jonathan Cake's slinkily sensual Iachimo (he even makes his remorseful penitence convincing) offer a trio that would be hard to beat."

Michael Kuchwara of the AP was also impressed. "Mark Lamos has delivered a lucid, emotionally generous and visually sumptuous production that corrals the convoluted tale and allows the play's three lead actors to shine. The play may be called 'Cymbeline' but it focuses not on this king of ancient Britain but on his daughter Imogen. She is a sister under the skin to the spirited heroines of much richer Shakespearean efforts such as 'Twelfth Night' and 'As You Like It.' In Martha Plimpton's robust, affecting performance, she dominates the action, complicated as it may be. Plimpton reconfirms the promise of her performances in 'The Coast of Utopia' last season at Lincoln Center and her work over the summer in a Central Park-Public Theater 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' The actress radiates intelligence, but it's smarts laden with emotional truthfulness and often quick wit."

However, for Linda Winer of Newsday, this production was "a mishmash of incompatible styles and improbable plot lines." She praises the actors - "most of the enticingly credentialed cast, especially Martha Plimpton as the wronged heroic Princess Imogen and John Cullum as her cruel-eyed lemony father, King Cymbeline, search heroically for emotions that might unify this unwieldy mix of fairy tale, near-tragic betrayal, farce and globe-trotting history." But she buries the creative team - "Lamos and his designers have moved the story from ancient Rome and Britain to where? The sets, by Michael Yeargan, are tall, dark and golden, with gilded pillars for the forest in Wales and art deco doorways for the English court. A Turkish bath, with men in towels, rises for the scene in Rome and a vista of constellations (exquisitely lighted by Brian MacDevitt) leaves Imogen spinning beneath its spell. When Jupiter descends from heaven, the eagle he's riding looks more like a hawk. The costumes, by Jess Goldstein, are a bizarre time-and-place travelogue of multicultural influences. Think Planet Alien in a Renaissance episode of 'Star Trek.'"

David Rooney of Variety thought, "If not everything in Mark Lamos' production quite matches the exquisite depth and scope of Plimpton's characterization, the fault lies more in this late problem play than in the work of the director or his generally accomplished cast. Unswerving in her fidelity, Imogen may be Shakespeare's most mature heroine, but she's been given an unsteady showcase."

The one critic who was not a fan of Plimpton's was Charles Isherwood of the New York Times, who thought her, "spunky and appealing (I liked the brisk way Imogen wipes her hands of the oily Iachimo), and Imogen’s tender reunion with Posthumus is simply done and affecting. But mannerism sometimes creeps into Ms. Plimpton’s vocal delivery; she always sounds admirably Shakespearean, but only intermittently human." While he found, "this stately production remarkable for its lucidity. In imposing a formal elegance on one of Shakespeare’s most wayward plays, the director, Mark Lamos, keeps confusion firmly at bay, smoothing its kinked story line into a well-drilled parade of avowals and betrayals, plots and counterplots, deaths and resurrections" he thought, "the clarity and restrained opulence of the production are more satisfying, unfortunately, than the caliber of the performances, which tend toward blandness or overstatement. The singular exception is an outstanding turn from Michael Cerveris, who provides the play with a wrenching emotional center as a husband who believes himself to be grossly betrayed, and who betrays his own nobler self in seeking to avenge this wrong."

(Photo: Beaumont Theater)