Antony & Cleopatra (1981)

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Siskoid
I originally came by this play via John Dryden's All for Love Or The World Well Lost, a Neoclassics-era remake of the Bard's last act. I'm afraid it's infected my thinking about A&C, because it had such a strong theme of emasculating Mark Antony by making all the other characters more decisive that he was. His failed suicide, Cleopatra's successful one, expanded roles for Octavia and the eunuch... it all resolved into a fertile pseudo-feminist concept for the play, and I kept looking for that in the original. Even when I try to put that out of my mind, I do still think Jane Lapotaire's Cleopatra could have been a little stronger. Her Cleopatra is a great manipulator, but she's also an emotional trainwreck, and strident at her MOST emotional. Colin Blakely was more to my taste as Antony, a man weakened by his natural bias toward the woman he loves. Ceasar is, in comparison, a more controlled man, logical and impassive, the great contrast between reason and passion, between Rome and Egypt. My favorite character remains Antony's right hand man, Enobarbus, but when you're played by Emrys James, it's hard not to have that effect on the audience. Overall, strong performances and wonderful words, quickly making me forget my initial raised eyebrow at the decidedly un-Egyptian sets and costumes. It makes sense historically, but is still not what you expect to see. 8 years 10 months ago