Review of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (directed by Michael Boyd for the Royal Shakespeare Company) at the Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 27 May 2010
Published Apr 1, 2011 · Warren Chernaik
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Abstract
The most unusual aspect of Michael Boyd’s remarkable modern dress production of Antony and Cleopatra was its sense of ensemble, as a collaborative enterprise. Rather than being dominated by two star performances, this was a joint effort in which even the most minor characters were clearly etched and individualized, with every detail thought through. The contrasting values of Egypt and Rome, pleasure and the single-minded, unsmiling pursuit of conquest, were brought out with clarity and force. In this production, Octavius Caesar, a tense, driven John Mackay, showing his repression of all emotion in his body language, was as important a figure as the two protagonists: the Roman world here is one where success means rejection of human feeling as a sign of weakness. In the scene of revelry on Pompey’s barge, Caesar stood aloof, visibly uncomfortable at any relaxation of discipline. Throughout the production, he was surrounded by an entourage of apparatchiks, equally coldblooded and ruthless: James Gale’s sharp-suited, expressionless Maecenas, a Roman hit-man stepping out of an episode of The Sopranos; Geoffrey Freshwater’s Agrippa, in dress uniform decorated with rows of ribbons; Phillip Edgerley’s deceptively murderous, soft-spoken Proculeius, polishing his spectacles as he called in killers with machine guns. Rome and its values were never idealized in this production. When Caesar spoke the line ‘‘The time of universal peace is near’’ (4.6.4), he appeared blatantly hypocritical, and the death of Lepidus, treated by contempt and then cast aside by his former ally Caesar, was shown in mime as it was described by Antony. No production I have seen has devoted such careful attention to the Roman scenes. In 2.2, the scene of bargaining between the two Roman contenders for supremacy, Octavius and Antony, the two, sitting on opposite sides of the stage with an ineffectual Lepidus attempting to moderate the dispute, were both shown as politically astute, manoeuvring for advantage. Darrell D’Silva’s Antony, muscular and energetic despite his grey hairs, was fully capable of heeding an occasional ‘‘Roman thought’’ (1.2.77), and when in Rome could bring under control those aspects of himself that found expression in Egypt. The Roman values of honour, selfdiscipline, and probity were shown to be threadbare and hypocritical in the scene on Pompey’s barge first, in the abject drunkenness of the feeble Lepidus, and then in the spine-chilling scene where the pirate Menas offers Pompey the chance to be ‘‘lord
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