Antony and Cleopatra
Shakespeare’s Globe
24 August 2014
3 Stars
Sometimes, quite unexpectedly, live theatre provides wholly unplanned and remarkably memorable moments of pure joy. Cleopatra is onstage, midway through her famous “Where think’st thou he is now?” speech. She wanders to the front of the stage, chooses a groundling for an intimate moment and kisses him. As she moves to leave, he produces a long-stemmed red rose and offers it to her. She is completely overwhelmed and cannot stop laughing with pleasure. The audience loves it and laughs too and their laughter overwhelms her, and she corpses completely. She finally recovers and plants another long kiss smack on the lips of the happy, long-haired Groundling. Eventually, the mirth subsided, the play moves on.
Well, perhaps that is what happened.
It may have been completely planned and rehearsed, a key part of director Jonathan Munby’s vision for Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, which concluded its run at the Globe tonight. Because the moment in question really put the audience onside with Cleopatra, in a startling, no-going back kind of way. And given that the character is a creature of many different and constantly changing facets, to have achieved that end so early in proceedings is an important achievement.
Munby might not have a particularly remarkable all-encompassing idea for this production, but he certainly makes the most of many of the key moments in the play. With the fourth wall down, Munby does not feel constrained by the text. Scenes are cut, re-arranged, intercut, characters appear in scenes they are not written in, Pompey’s rout of the combined sea forces of Antony and Cleopatra is represented by some spiffing aerial acrobatics involving flags and there is a bacchanalian dance which pervades the piece, rooting it solidly in a primal, sexual landscape. All of this works surprisingly well.
However, there is a real cost to clarity. There is so much focus on the comedy in the piece and an all-consuming need to create memorable, arresting stage pictures, that, occasionally, the plot twists and turns are lost in the chaos.
Does that really matter?
Perhaps not.
Because, whatever way you look at it, this is a great time at the theatre. It might not be vocally sublime (you only have to watch the snippet from The National Theatre’s 50th Birthday celebrations to see what vocal glories the text provides, as Judi Dench knocks the socks off “I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony” speech) but it is dynamic and engrossing.
And Eve Best is at the centre of it all.
Sexy, petulant, conniving, traitorous, belligerent, sulky, vengeful, grief-stricken – Cleopatra is all these things and more. Stalking around the stage like a sleek panther on heat, Best embraced the Egyptian monarch with every fibre of her being. Her solidarity with her womenfolk, her lust and love for Antony, her wilful spite and mischievousness in her dealings with the messenger (a scene full of hilarity, joyously shared with Peter Bankolé’s goggle-eyed Messenger), her political naivety and her final, brave refusal to submit to Octavius’ rule: Best shines a light onto every facet of this regal diamond and lets it dazzle.
Her handling of the comedy was especially deft. She mined laughs from places in the text where none were obvious; she could bring down the house with a flutter of an eye or a quick turn of the head. She was in full leading lady mode, mercurial, delicious and entrancing. She made the audience believe utterly in her passion for Clive Wood’s Antony which is quite an achievement in itself.
Wood manages the various demands of Antony well, but he is much better in vicious soldier mode or grand honourable Roman mode than as overwhelmed, passionate lover. The scenes with his army confederates and supporters capture his best work, and he particularly enjoys sparring with Jolyon Coy’s upstart Octavius. (A firm and graceful turn from Coy) His final scene with Cleopatra is surprisingly funny given that he is dying in her arms, but it works well; fresh and intriguing.
Phil Daniels makes Enobarbus a fruity, rough and convivial Everyman character. He has an easy and winning style and, of all the cast, his voice is the most distinctive and arresting. The Barge Speech may not be as John Gielgud would have done it, but it works and evokes the exact sentiments necessary. When his betrayal of Antony comes, it is shocking.
Philip Correia is truly excellent as Pompey. He has a great, manly voice and an impressive masculine frame, so his job as real threat to Antony and Octavius is done simply by appearing on stage. But he uses his voice exceptionally well and brings real vocal colour and interest to every lament he has. It is the same when he doubles up as Dolabella in the last part of the play, when he gives excellent support to Best’s queen.
Sirine Saba makes much of Charmain, Cleopatra’s faithful attendant. She is witty, engaging and loyal constantly; the stage brightens whenever she appears. Jonathan Bonnici does good work as the Soothsayer, and his interval antics (gutting, eating and communing with the entrails of a goat) are revolting and arresting in equal measure. James Hayes plays several roles excellently, his fine resonant voice being used to good purpose, but he is a stand-out as the man who delivers the asp to Cleopatra in the final scenes. Daniel Rabin made a fine Agrippa and Peter Banoké an excellent Eros.
Aline David’s choreography and Kate Waters’ movement keep proceedings moving along nicely, sometimes startlingly. While James Maxwell’s score was odd and ethereal, Melanie Pappenheim’s glistening soprano voice was always a joy.
Colin Richmond’s design worked very effectively. The sense of Egypt was clear as was the sense of Rome and there were several clever devices – the banners of either side, the ramps, the cascading map, the sudden fall of black flags, the slowly increasing use of gold to signify Egypt. It all worked very well indeed, creating a visual tapestry of the political conflicts and the personal drama.
This recent Globe season included Julius Caesar and Titus Andronicus and, interestingly enough, seeing those plays with Antony and Cleopatra is helpful. Because Antony and Cleopatra is almost as political as Julius Caesar and almost as blood-thirsty and comical as Titus Andronicus. Yet, at the same time, it is nothing like those plays and, perhaps, better than both.
Eve Best might not be the greatest actress to have played Cleopatra, or the one with the greatest voice. But she created an indelible, voraciously sexual, politically infantile Queen of Egypt which will haunt the memory for years to come.
