A romance of magic and adventure, “Pericles” recounts the 16-year odyssey of a prince storm-tossed around the Mediterranean from his homeland of Tyre to Mytilene. The smell of incense, hanging lanterns above an oriental-carpeted stage, and exotic music on the Greek clarinet, gaida, and bouzouki greet the audience on entering the theater.

It is generally agreed that Shakespeare did not write acts one and two, in which Pericles travels to Antioch to solve a riddle that will win the hand of the daughter of King.Antiochus. Former suitors who failed have been beheaded. One of many spectacular stage effects occurs when the king demonstrates to Pericles the result of failure: severed heads drop down on ropes from the ceiling. Undeterred, he jousts with and defeats other suitors. But when Pericles solves the riddle and it alerts him to the incestuous relationship between the ruler and his daughter, Pericles realizes his life in in danger, and he flees. After saving another kingdom from famine, he sails on to Pentapolis, falls in love with and marries Thaisa, sails for home but encounters a great storm, during which their child Marina is born and his wife supposedly dies in childbirth and is buried at sea.

The power of the lines and the theme of reunion of father and daughter and husband and wife, mark the last three acts as Shakespeare’s. When Pericles enters as the storm rages, declaring, Lear-like, “The god of this great vast, rebuke these surges,” we are fairly certain of the authorship of the last three acts. In addition to the power of the lines, the theme appears in the other late plays in the RSC series. “The Winter’s Tale” also follows in separate plots the fortunes of father and child, concluding with a similar family reunion, with father and daughter and husband and wife being reunited. And in “The Tempest,” as in the other two works, the marriage of the mature hero’s daughter is celebrated.

“Pericles” is not an easy play to stage, with its time span and changes of locale and characters, and Adrian Noble does an excellent job both of clarifying a complex plot and of creating an atmosphere of exoticism and mystery. Eastern costumes and music help, and most of the principals are effective and clear-spoken, with the exception of Myra Lucretia Taylor as the wicked Queen Dionyza, who jealously plots Marina’s death. Brian Protheroe is outstanding as John Gower, who serves as chorus and upon whose telling of the story, originally a Hellenistic romance, the play is based.

Ray Fearon is a heroic, virile Pericles and Kananu Kirimi a delightfully appealing Marina, convincing even in the brothel scene where she must preserve her virtue while preaching to the inmates to amend their ways. The comic acting of Geff Francis as Pandar and Simon Gregor as Boult in the brothel (to which Victorians objected) renders the scenes bawdy but not offensive. Mr. Fearon and Ms. Kirimi are especially effective in the moving scene where a despondent Pericles recognizes Marina as his lost child. As in “The Winter’s Tale” and “The Tempest” in this RSC season of late plays, families are reunited at the end, as Thaisa (Lauren Ward), thought dead, like Hermione, is restored to her husband and child. .

For reviews of “The Winter’s Tale” and “The Tempest,” see Archive of Plays Reviewed.

The Royal Shakespeare Company concludes its London season with a disappointing “Antony and Cleopatra,” at the Haymarket through September 21. It is not up to the usual high standard maintained by the RSC because Sinead Cusack’s fine Cleopatra is playing opposite a miscast Antony. Stuart Wilson is hardly convincing as “the triple pillar of the world,” the Roman general who, in Shakespeare’s opening lines is likened to Mars. But these are not the opening lines used by director Michael Attenborough, who has chopped and changed the text. Mr. Wilson has obviously not read National Theatre voice director Patsy Rodenburg’s book Speaking Shakespeare or he would be aware that there is rhythm and music in the lines which he slurs, swallows, and stops, losing the sense. To mistake shouting for emotion may be acceptable on television, but hardly on the RSC stage.

That said, let us appreciate Ms. Cusack’s Cleopatra, who demonstrates the “infinite variety” characteristic of this legendary Egyptian Queen, for she is, in turn (using Shakespeare’s words) a “wrangling Queen/ Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, /To weep.” Her memorable scenes include those with the messenger bringing news of Antony’s marriage, and her final decision to join him in death. As the young Octavius Caesar, Stephen Campbell-Moore is outstanding. Unlike Antony, Octavius has his emotions firmly in control; no chance that Cleopatra will charm him as she did his adoptive father, Julius Caesar. Mr. Campbell-Moore creates a rounded character: a caring brother, an abstainer from enticements that would affect his valued reason, and a commanding, intelligent administrator (which historically paid off when in 27 BC he became the Emperor Augustus, ushering in 250 years of stability for Rome). He and Clive Wood as the contrasting, fun-loving Roman Enobarbus demonstrate how Shakespeare should be spoken, preserving the rhythm, which leads to accenting the right words, and thus making the meaning clear. Noma Dumezweni and Kirsten Parker contribute good cameos as the handmaidens Charmian and Iras.

Director Michael Attenborough might be allowed a few cuts of text, but to eliminate Pompey altogether makes the carousing scene meaningless. It is meant to take place on board Pompey’s galley, where the triumvirate are celebrating an uneasy truce with their former friend. Turned into a “banquet,” it makes little sense. One suspects that the extensive drinking bouts and the interminable men’s dance - which looks like rugby’s New Zealand Blacks’ war-dance - use up the space and time originally allotted to Pompey. Changing the opening of the play, in which Antony’s soldiers contrast their general’s great feats in battle with his transformation “into a strumpet’s fool” is to challenge Shakespeare’s stagecraft, whereby the audience is made to anticipate the entrance of the regal pair who will surpass all the lovers in Elysium. Instead, the two are, “lolling on a lewd day-bed” with Cleo bestriding Antony, oiling his back as he lies face down.

Questions: Why is Cleopatra inserted into the domestic scene between Antony and new wife Octavia? If she symbolizes Antony’s thought, she should be depicted less realistically than lying on a piece of the furniture. Why are words changed? Small example: Antony, raging about Cleopatra’s allowing Caesar’s messenger to kiss her hand: “To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes/ With one that ties his points?” Being an archaic word, “points,” meaning, we can assume from the lines, “laces,” is here changed to “shoes.” Does tying shoes make better sense? Also “ties” and “points,” beginning with plosives, suit Antony’s explosion over the incident. And why substitute the funereal soothsayer for the “rural fellow,” as he is described, who at the end brings Cleopatra the figs ( covering death-dealing asps)? Any of the men playing the smaller roles so well could have played the “clown” (rustic), whose prose sexual innuendo contrasts with and provides a lightening before the high poetry of Cleopatra’s death scene.

Designer Es Devlin dresses Antony as a hippie, but Octavius and his Romans look good in ankle-length, fitted, tailored coats over shiny breastplates. Or maybe they wear their costumes better. The tall box on which Antony is placed in his final scene with Cleopatra means he is awkwardly lowered down by his bandages, instead of raised, as in the text. The shifting from Egypt to Rome and back is conveyed by appropriate music and light changes from red to grey and black that becomes monotonous after a while. And why a backdrop of soldiers, used for the war scenes, remains for non-war scenes is another detail that proves confusing rather than clarifying. Compared to the usual RSC achievements: C+. Performance schedule www.rsc.org.uk.