By Harry Haun
03 Dec 2007

Imogen is not Plimpton's first brush with The Bard. She played Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream in August for her ex-stepfather, Dan Sullivan, so it's her second — but she equips herself like a veteran who has been doing it all of her life. "I love doing it every night, I love the company, I love the role, and I love the play. As odd as it is, I love it."

Plus, she looks great doing it. Goldstein has fashioned some stunning gowns for her that actually draw gasps when she makes entrances. "I've been very fortunate in that department," she allowed. "Of course, Catherine [Zuber] dressed me so beautifully in The Coast of Utopia. Then, in Hedda Gabler, Cathy dressed me really beautifully."

She was particularly pleased that her dad, Keith Carradine, was in the audience on opening night — as ever, a fatherly fixture at ringside. You can almost set your watch by it. "I think he just missed one. He always comes, if not at the opening, later on in the run."

Carradine needed no prodding whatsoever about his opinion of his daughter's prowess. Unexpectedly: "I'm so proud of her, and the thing I'm most proud of is she has developed her gifts herself. She has worked harder than anyone I know. I pray that one day I get to be on stage with her because she could teach me from morning till night.

"Someone once asked Eleanora Duse, 'How do you do what you do?' She said, 'I put my feet on the stage, I grab hold with my toes, and I just hang on.' That's Martha. My father [John] had that kind of power. My brother David has that kind of power. I have craft. She is so far beyond. She's the culmination of the gene pool from my side of the family. Her mother's side [Shelley Plimpton] also contributed profoundly. I'd say, from my side, she's the quintessence of the realization of that potential. I was just kvelling in the audience."

He was preaching to the converted, telling this to John Pankow, who plays Pisario, a retainer sent to assassinate Imogen who instead counsels her. "That is describing your daughter," Pankow agreed. "She comes to life when she's doing that play. It's awesome to be on stage with her. Sometimes you break concentration on stage, and you think, 'Why am I on stage in my undies?' — but you look into Martha's eyes and she zaps you right back into the play. She has such a gift for deeply slipping into an imaginary world."

Cerveris, who lately zigzags with alarming rapidity between musicals (LoveMusik, Sweeney Todd, his Tony-winning Assassins) and Shakespeare (King Lear, Macbeth), is comfortable with the stop-start aspects of Posthumus. "Actually, he's like what Kent was in Lear," he pointed out. "You come on and have a bunch of stuff at the beginning, then you're off for a long time, and then you have a bunch of stuff at the end — this, even more so because, once I come back, I'm essentially on stage till the end of the play. It's a huge arc Posthumus goes through, a whole roller-coaster. I mean, it's like a play unto itself."

Cake, a London transplant, stirs the cauldron vigorously as the trouble-making Iachimo who convinces Posthumus that he has had an affair with Imogen — and he seems to be the only person on stage, speaking crisp King's English. "Actually, there's another Brit in the company, though he's Scottish: Anthony Cochrane," he noted. "Also, you should know Michael Cerveris is the greatest Anglophile I know. He spends a lot of time in London."

He's quite happy with the cunning plotter he plays. "It's a great part. He will do whatever it takes. Anyone who knows the play knows there's this warm, extraordinary scene in Imogen's bedchamber. It's one of the most famous Shakespeare scenes where Iachimo comes up and charms her. It's an extraordinary gift as an actor to play it. I love doing it."

The character is introduced into the play via a steam-room scene that, at the start of previews, displayed his derriere. "We experimented showing off a bit more flesh than we do now. Everyone thought it was just distracting so we cut it." As things now stand, he only has thighs for you — which he previously showed off as Jason to Fiona Shaw's Medea.

Mrs. Cake — Julianne Nicholson of "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" — beamed blissfully on the sidelines. "I'm on maternity leave right now, but I'll be back in January. We just had a baby three months ago. A friend thought up the name — Ignatius — and it just stuck."

Tony winner Rashad is also the source of much mischief in the play as Mrs. Cymbeline, alternately planning to poison Imogen or get her to marry her own son, Cloten (Adam Dannheisser), a comic villain who comes to a harsher end that his stupidity deserves.

Rashad plays the role on another planet from Cosbyland, as if she had used "Snow White and the Seven Drawfs" for her training film. It is her debut as a villainess and as a Shakespearean actress. "I had the help of a fine director, a wonderful cast and some very good coaching," she admitted. "What I like about the character is the challenge that it presents. It has been hard to do the cadence of the speech — to move with that rhythmically and honestly, and to understand all the rules and regulations of Shakespeare theatre."

A post-premiere drizzle erased the evidence of the season's first snow as guests made their way to a firefly-lit Tavern on the Green. Attending: Frank Rich and Alex Witchel, director Jack O'Brien and Marsha Mason, Peter Francis James, Howard McGillin, Veanne Cox, Jane Greenwood, Alfred Uhry, Marian Seldes and Brian Murray, Laura Flanigan, Sandra Shipley, Joan Copeland, Melvin Bernhardt and Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. The latter have The Glorious Ones going downstairs at Lincoln Center in the Mitzi Newhouse, while upstairs at the Vivian Beaumont The Gorgeous Ones (a.k.a. a redeemed Cymbeline) reigns supreme — 'til Jan. 6. It must vacate for a tidal wave called South Pacific. Will the spectacle never stop?