Reviewed by James Karas
In the opening scene of Antony
and Cleopatra, we see Cleopatra lying still on the floor as Philo, one
of Antony’s followers, speaks the first lines of the play. Antony, the great
general who resembled the god of war Mars has become a strumpet’s fool, he
tells Antony’s friend Demetrius. Antony enters and gives the prostrate Cleopatra
a kiss and she awakens as if from the dead. The two are supposed to enter with a flourish
and a train of followers but director Simon Godwin had a different and
brilliant idea for the commencement of the play.
The Queen of Egypt and one of
Caesar’s three successors, express their boundless love for each other. Within
a few lines in the opening scene Shakespeare has joined the two forces that
make up Antony and Cleopatra – the political fate of the Roman world
and the great love story of the two protagonists.
Ralph Fiennes takes the role of
the besotted Antony who must navigate between political necessity and passion.
He manages to make a truce with his rival Octavius Caesar (Tunji Kasim),
including marrying his sister Octavia (Hannah Morrish) but soon capitulates to
his dotage and returns to Egypt.
Fiennes gives a bravura
performance taking Antony from the heroic general to the broken down man and
lover who is humiliated, turns to drink and eventually commits suicide. Even in
his heyday as a lover Antony is treated with derision and contempt by the
Romans but he maintains his bravado in the first half of the play. Fiennes is
powerful, passionate, arrogant and pathetic in turn as his character’s life
cycle takes its course.
Near the end of his life Antony recalls
Dido and Aeneas, the great lovers of the distant past. Aeneas loved Dido as
much as Antony loved Cleopatra but he left the grieving Queen behind in
Carthage because he was to higher duty bound, the founding of Rome. A marvelous
juxtaposition in a play that displays a richness of language and references.
Sophie Okonedo is outstanding as
Cleopatra. This Queen is feline, sexually magnetic, manipulative, blindly in
love and a woman to be reckoned with under all circumstances. She maintains her
majesty, her ardour, her nobility and her arrogance almost intact to the bitter
end unlike Antony who becomes a pathetic man. In her strength of character Okonedo’s
Cleopatra remains what Antony was in his prime.
Tunji Kasim as Caesar is
conniving, mendacious and pretty slimy. His sister Octavia as played by Morrish
is attractive, sympathetic and decent in a world where decency is a rare
commodity.
Tim McMullen as Antony’s faithful
follower Enobarbus is a proper soldier, competent and faithful, until he breaks
down and joins the enemy He recovers moral stature by realizing his treachery
and ending his own life.
Director Simon Godwin’s modern
dress production was staged at London’s National Theatre and is being broadcast
to movie houses. The opulence of Cleopatra’s palace is suggested by a swimming
pool and the rest of the play with the numerous scene changes using large panels with door openings. The large revolving
stage of the Olivier Theatre is ideal for quick scene changes. With more than
two hundred entrances by the large number of characters the use of numerous
door entrances is a must and Set Designer Hildegard Bachtler has provided them.
A highly effective production.
But a word to the squeamish: the production uses a real snake for Cleopatra’s
end-of-life sequence.
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