As the FIrst act of Cymbeline nears intermission, a couple of cowboys stride up to a microphone: one pulls out a mandolin, a cowgirl appears with an acoustic guitar, and they launch into a lovely, rousing cowboy ballad. As Shakespeare's story is set in Britain during the Roman occupation, you may wonder why this production features cowboys. This question seems simple, but answering it proves surprisingly complicated.

Most theater aspires to create a coherent world in which all the elements combine harmoniously to create a portrait of something we consider reality--if not the reality we experience in our daily lives, a reality that has an internal set of rules and operates by them. But another approach argues that coherence is arbitrary, that reality doesn't operate by such rules and so neither should art. Costumes, character interpretations, narrative styles, etc. are chosen for the ideas and emotions they suggest, not because they fit into a consistent representation of a place and time.

This latter approach suits Cymbeline, for the play itself is a wild patchwork: part fairy tale (a wicked queen banishes her son-in-law so that her blood son will be closer to the throne), part melodrama (King Cymbeline's infant sons were kidnapped and raised by a disgruntled former soldier), part British history (when a Roman general is denied tribute, he declares war on Cymbeline's kingdom), and part moral quandary (a bragging husband bets that a cad won't be able to bed his virtuous wife); it's filled with out-of-the-blue events (at one point toward the end, a man in prison is visited not only by his dead relatives but by the Roman god Jupiter; previous to this moment, the play has had no hint of the supernatural) and implausible plot devices (one character is beheaded while wearing another character's clothes, leading to mistaken identity). The play concludes with a dizzying cascade of confessions and reversals of fortune, a frenzy of plot resolution that can't be taken seriously, even though the language maintains its passionate intensity.

Conceptually, there's no convincing reason why King Cymbeline's lost sons should be depicted with chaps and lariats; they were raised in the mountains, but that's a far cry from the Wild West. But in practice, the cowboy twang unlocks the rhythms of Shakespeare's iambic pentameter. The actors are notably more expressive with the language in that idiom, even though it paints everything a bit comic (the Seattle Shakespeare Company had a similar success setting The Merchant of Venice in Gold Rush California). As a result, the second act whizzes along, buoyed up by this boisterous yee-hah! energy.

Costuming Cymbeline's court in a hodgepodge of Japanese and other Far East outfits (except for the Queen, who's in a lime-green, breast-emphasizing, Dangerous Liaisons-style dress, and her son, who's in bright blue pajamas) is less successful in helping the story along, though wonderfully pretty. This look does feed into some Eastern-influenced theatrics, like the Queen's garden being depicted by flower-encrusted umbrellas, and a gorgeous trip through a snowstorm with Japanese parasols; it also gives Imogen, the wife whose chastity is in question, the opportunity to fend off the cad with a wild flash of kung fu, which ups her independence. (Julyana Soelistyo gives a strong performance, but her petite, child-sized physical stature--which is great for the scenes in which she's dressed as a boy and referred to as such--lends a creepy air of pedophilia to her romantic embraces.)

Some audience members have found this approach confusing, but I'm drawn to this messy excess; it's akin to watching My Own Private Idaho or Bram Stoker's Dracula, movies so drunk on the possibilities of their medium that the sheer abundance of ideas becomes an experience above and beyond the movie's story or themes. Not everything works and not everything is delightful--if I never see another battle portrayed by people banging long sticks together, I'll be very happy--but director (and Intiman Artistic Director) Bartlett Sher's willingness to experiment is exciting. Even the least seen of Shakespeare's works are produced every year in some corner of the country. Something has to be done with these plays besides drowning them in production values. Why not take advantage of their familiarity to offer audiences a different approach?