NEW YORK (AP) ¿ "Cymbeline" is quite possibly Shakespeare's strangest creation.

Not really a comedy, a tragedy or a historical drama, the play has bits of all three, which may be why directors like it. It's easier to impose their own vision on its unruly plot.

And Mark Lamos, who directed the current Lincoln Center Theater revival, 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.

The story defies simple explanation, but let's see if we can untangle a strand or two of the ornate plot. Cymbeline has banished Imogen's devoted husband, Posthumus, who flees to Italy where he meets Iachimo, a reprobate of the first order.

Iachimo bets he can seduce the loyal Imogen. He does find his way into her bedchamber ¿ where nothing happens ¿ but Posthumus thinks it has. Misunderstandings abound.

Posthumus often comes across as a cipher. Not so in Michael Cerveris' fervent portrait. The actor manages to use the character's inherent goodness to make Posthumus a truly noble creature, and not the sanctimonious pill he often becomes.

Jonathan Cake's buff Iachimo provides the perfect antidote to Posthumus' almost superhuman saintliness. Iachimo is a dastardly dandy, and Cake revels in the man's excesses without descending to caricature. He's overtly sexual and preening with the confidence of a man who truly believes in his powers of seduction.

That bedchamber scene, in which Iachimo scampers around a sleeping Imogen is one of the evening's highlights.

But there is a lot more story. We haven't even gotten around to Imogen's evil stepmother and her potions of poison; the woman's doltish son (also in love in Imogen); Imogen's two long-lost brothers; a war with the Romans and a visit ¿ in a dream ¿ from the god Jupiter himself.

The staggering parade of scenes can leave a viewer befuddled, although Lamos manages to make all the twists and turns surprisingly clear.

The supporting cast is variable. John Cullum displays a fatherly obtuseness as Cymbeline, who can best be described as a mini-Lear but without that monarch's formidable tragic dimensions.

Phylicia Rashad as the villainous queen gives a grandiose performance, full of double takes and ornamented enunciation that unnecessarily underlines every word she speaks. Adam Dannheisser pushes the buffoonery of the queen's son about as far as it should go ¿ and then some.

Far more effective are John Pankow's gently understated Pisanio, Posthumus' loyal servant; David Furr and Gregory Wooddell as Imogen's crude, woodsy siblings, and Paul O'Brien as their surrogate father.