Stratford’s latest Antony and Cleopatra is their usual first-rate reading of a Shakespearean classic with a cast of superbly trained classical actors and an elegant-looking production. But I was still less than thrilled by the experience; and, in fact, I’m beginning to think that despite all its great moments and beloved dialogue, I just don’t like the play.
In England, Canada, New York, and Washington, D. C., I’ve seen several impressive productions of this famed tragedy; and – aside from each having included at least one embarrassing element [e.g., Maggie Smith’s patented comic shrug and delivery getting laughs in Cleopatra’s death scene] – I’ve always found it unsatisfying. The tragedy drags on for three or more hours; its plotting, like its actual history, is repetitious; and it continuously shifts between heroic and petulant behavior from both of its larger-than-life protagonists. Actually, Chicago whiz-kid director Gary Griffin makes the play fairly lively and efficient in movement. Associate director of the noteworthy Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Griffin has won many international awards for direction, mostly of musicals; but his understanding and clarity of Shakespearean drama is impeccable. The problem here is not clarity or appropriateness, but dramatic force. Despite the great Geraint Wyn Davies’ impressively handsome, passionate, and noble Mark Antony; Yanna McIntosh’s beautiful, mercurial Cleopatra; Ben Carlson’s amazingly varied and human Octavius Caesar [usually a cold, one-note character]; and Tom McCamus’s truly involving Enobarbus [a usually forgettable role]; the overall theatrical effect of this Antony and Cleopatra is downright pallid. It was admirable, impressive, and I was glad when it was over.
I never got the feeling that either title-character was trying to appeal to the audience. Perhaps they shouldn’t. In Washington, D.C., at the Shakespeare Theater, a young actor named John-Michael Marrs practically stole the last act with a heartbreaking performance as young Eros who kills himself rather than hold the sword for Mark Antony to fall on. Daniel Briere, who got lost in the role of Romeo in a miserably directed Romeo and Juliet at Stratford, isn’t quite that overpowering here, but he certainly moves the audience with his heartfelt Eros. Sean Arbuckle, Randy Hughson, Peter Hutt, Brian Tree, and Sophia Walker are also unusually affecting in smaller roles.
I don’t think the Patterson’s incredibly long thrust stage is the ideal setting for this play, but Charlotte Dean’s designs, with the usual sensitive lighting by Michael Walton and affecting sound by Peter McBoyle and fights staged by John Stead, provide an appropriately impressive staging for the tragedy. The play is full of traps for poor theater folks trying to do it justice: Cleopatra says, "Show me, my women, like a queen: go fetch my best attires.” Imagine all the audiences looking at a budget-handicapped production and saying, "That’s the legendary Cleopatra’s finest clothing?”! No problem here: Stratford’s A&C is top-level. But it is hardly the most emotionally involving production of this season.
