It's been a long time since I was in that position; almost none of the plays are new to me at this stage. (I'll confess, though, that I've neither seen nor read Coriolanus, Cymbaline, or Timon of Athens. Or, for that matter, any of the Apocrypha) For me personally, I would absolutely do exactly the same as you; if I was going to attend a production of any of those plays which I've not yet experienced, I would read the script, first.
But for someone who isn't yet accustomed to the language, I expect that it would be a hard slog, getting through the texts without an actor's interpretation to help you along.
> But for someone who isn't yet accustomed to the language, I expect that it would be a hard slog, getting through the texts without an actor's interpretation to help you along.
That's the beauty of the web. The online transcripts of the plays provide many explanations of the language and its cultural context, which makes the dialog so much more understandable to people coming to it the first time.
Without doing this it will be difficult for a beginner to understand what the actors are saying or what's happening on stage. Frankly, I can have trouble with plays I've seen only once before or haven't seen in a long time, I figure it won't hurt to read it before seeing it again.
But for someone who isn't yet accustomed to the language, I expect that it would be a hard slog, getting through the texts without an actor's interpretation to help you along.