Geraint Wyn Davies (left) as Mark Antony and
Ben Carlson as Octavius Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra. Photo by David Hou.
Reviewed by James Karas
The Stratford Festival plans to
film all of Shakespeare’s plays over the next ten years. It has already
released three productions, King Lear, King John and Antony
and Cleopatra and one can express only gratitude for the plan and restrain
from griping (almost) about some of the defects.
The 2014 production of Antony and Cleopatra was directed by
Gary Griffin in the Tom Patterson Theatre with an outstanding cast. The filmed
version looks great on the big screen and it would have looked even better if
Barry Avrich, the director for film exercised restraint and better judgment.
Geraint Wyn Evans gives a powerful
performance as Mark Antony, one of the three men who took over the fate of a
significant part of the western world after the assassination of Julius Caesar.
We see Antony in the fall if not
winter of his life, living in Egypt and besotted with Cleopatra. Wyn Davies
shows us Antony’s passion, arrogance, decency and his lack of the killer
instinct. Antony has an agreeable face and is ready to grin, even smile. He is
also arrogant and unable to stay away from Cleopatra despite his political
duties in Rome. A superbly nuanced performance by Wyn Davies.
He is well-matched by the
passionate and histrionic performance of Yanna McIntosh as Cleopatra. This is a
Cleopatra to be reckoned with. She is irrational, cunning, imperious and
ambitious. McIntosh gives an outstanding performance.
It is interesting to compare Mark
Antony with Ben Carlson’s Octavius Caesar and Brian Tree’s Pompey. The latter
is a straight-laced soldier – dour, unsmiling, and “regular army,” as they say.
He too lacks the killer instinct to eliminate his opponents. Octavius has a
kindly-looking face but he is ambitious, crafty and duplicitous. Not
surprisingly he ends up as the emperor. Lepidus, the other member of the
triumvirate, played well by Randy Hughson, is an ineffectual old man and a
peacemaker. He is easily eliminated.
Yanna McIntosh as Cleopatra and Geraint Wyn
Davies as Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra. Photo by David Hou.
The large cast performs very well
with some distinguished performances by Tom McCamus as the Enobarbus, Antony’s
friend who eventually betrays him; Sophia Walker as Charmian, Cleopatra’s
faithful servant and Sean Arbuckle as Mecenas.
On the large screen we are able to
see facial expressions and movements that are impossible to notice in the
theatre. We can see every grimace and expression of Wyn Davis and McIntosh as
well as every wrinkle in McCamus’s expressive face.
The cameras capture all angles of
the thrust stage of the Tom Patterson. Depending on where you are seated, you
are bound to lose some or much of the performers’ faces in the theatre.
But there is such a thing as too
much detail and far too many camera angles and close-ups. Avrich keeps clicking
on different angles when the actors and the scene are perfectly visible. Just
let us listen to what is being said and what is happening in the scene. We do
not need a different angle every few seconds. You get the feeling that Avrich
has no idea what a performance looks like in the theatre and is treating us as
if we are watching a television show.
It is a constant complaint of mine
and perhaps we can get some theatre goer to direct the filmed versions of plays
- someone who knows the benefit of concentrating on the play instead of on
camera angles.
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