Synopsis Antony and Cleopatra tells of the overwhelming passions of two magnetic personalities who hold the destiny of a third of the world in their hands. Antony is a warrior and a lover, torn between his military duties and the erotic charms of the sensuous Egyptian court. At the heart is Cleopatra. "Serpent of old Nile", storym and unpredictable. Their love eventually triumphs with their noble deaths, but not before all else is lost.
Patrick Stewart & Harriet Walter as Antony & Cleopatra
Date: 18 January 2007
The Royal Shakespeare Company continues its now-annual winter West End residency with Antony and Cleopatra, which opened to unanimously positive reviews on Monday (15 January 2007, following previews from 11 January) at the Novello Theatre (See News, 25 Aug 2006).
Last April, Gregory Doran’s production – which stars Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter in the title roles - launched the RSC’s year-long Complete Works Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon, where it continued in rep until October 2006. At the Novello, it runs until 17 February 2007.
Opening night critics were captivated by the performances of the two leads as the ageing lovers grasping their last, passionate fling with gusto. Stewart in particular received acclaim as a masterly actor of Shakespeare from several reviewers. Some felt the production sat more comfortably at the RSC’s Stratford home in the more intimate Swan theatre, but all were impressed by Doran’s tight, clear direction driven along by a universally strong company.
Maxwell Cooter on Whatsonstage.com (5 stars) - “Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter both give peerless performances as the doomed lovers. However, Doran doesn’t neglect the political machinations at the heart of the play and he delivers a heady mix of the political and the personal, while also drawing out more comedy than usual…. Stewart’s love-sick, fawning Antony is completely captivated by Walter’s sensuous but capricious queen, but there’s also a real sense that this is an Antony who…. is torn between his sexual desire and his military hunger…. What also sets the production alight is the relationship between Octavius and Antony. John Hopkins’ twitchy, neurotic Caesar cannot disguise his envy of the virile, charismatic Antony, while Stewart is a man fully aware of his failing powers and resentful of the youth of his nemesis…. There’s also an excellent performance by Ken Bones as an Enobarbus whose cynicism is over-shadowed by self-hatred… With rock-solid performances all round, where every word is uttered with absolute clarity, and as good a central pairing as you can get, this is Shakespearean theatre at its best.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (3 stars) – “As that magnificently smitten couple… Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter made a big, memorable impression last April at Stratford-upon-Avon's Swan Theatre. Transferred to the larger, traditional Novello stage, Gregory Doran's production has sadly lost much of its originality, its intimate focus and forcefulness…. the complexities and subtleties of the couple's relationship have been ironed out…. Their relationship remains larky, sparky but is no longer overwhelming…. This Antony and Cleopatra has, however, improved dramatically where it deals with imperial politics and warfare. John Hopkins' superb Octavius… creates an ominous atmosphere of distrust and suspicion…. Ariyon Bakare's Pompey leads a swaggering troop of sailors…. Ken Bones makes a wonderful, craggy skull-capped Enobarbus…. The battles that burst out as the triumvirate falls apart are magnificently managed in an expressionistic haze of smoke, darkness and Adrian Lee's evocative music. Ironically, this Antony and Cleopatra succeeds best with military rather than sexual warfare.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (4 stars) – “In Gregory Doran's excellent production, imported from Stratford's Swan, Patrick Stewart offers the best Antony since Michael Redgrave half a century ago…. Stewart's secret is to suggest that Antony, although sexually enthralled by Cleopatra, is primarily a soldier most at ease in the world of men…. He gives us a magnificently wounded lion: one haunted by the memory that he was once king of the jungle. This in no way diminishes Harriet Walter's remarkable Cleopatra… In his presence, she is witty, playful and teasing. In his absence, Walter conveys the restless volatility that marks true love. It is a consummately intelligent performance…. The other discovery in a cliché-free production is John Hopkins' Octavius Caesar. Rather than the desiccated calculating-machine he is usually seen as, in Hopkins' hands he becomes a breathtakingly tormented neurotic, appalled at Antony's descent into sexual enslavement.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (4 stars) – “Patrick Stewart proved to any residual doubter that he was much more than a bald bloke traversing the universe in space-age couture…. His Antony is as good as any you’ll see: a lion whose claim to be king of the jungle is still strong but dwindling daily as he succumbs to age and sexual temptation…. But then Antony isn’t as challenging a role as Cleopatra, who is burdened with the task of embodying ‘infinite variety’. She must be wily, erotic, arrogant, manipulative, loving and far, far more. So who can blame that fine actress, Harriet Walter, for failing to embrace all her contradictions?... She twists and turns and plays mischievous games with Antony… but she lacks the emotional ferocity, the danger and, above all, the sensuality that Frances Barber brought to the role in a less adroit revival at Shakespeare’s Globe last summer…. Doran’s RSC production remains clear, direct, pacey…. It’s also thanks to a consistency of performance that we haven’t always associated with the RSC in recent years…. There’s plenty of thoughtful detail in this revival.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph – “I was blown away by the show at the Swan last April, and it seems just as magnificent the second time around in the bigger and less hospitable Novello. There isn't a dud performance among the cast… nor a moment when Doran and his outstanding company seem to be misreading the piece…. Stewart and Walter… achieve a thrilling sense of love and passion that is all the more touching because there is so much humour and sexy teasing in their relationship. Stewart brilliantly captures the once loyal imperialist soldier who has gone native, keenly aware that his time is running out and that his affair with Cleopatra is his big last chance of romance and lust. But there is a delicious sense of irony even in his love-making, an awareness that his middle-aged infatuation is faintly ridiculous…. This sense of the ridiculous mingling with the tragic is also evident in Walter's superb performance. Her variety may not quite be infinite, but it is hugely impressive, as she mixes passion and loss, glamour and deceit, majesty with the tantrums of a spoilt child.”
Alice Jones in the Independent (4 stars) – "Doran's relentlessly pacey production bestrides comedy, tragedy, history and politics; having moved from the intimate Swan, it easily fills its larger, gilded surroundings at the Novello.... Harriet Walter and Patrick Stewart are excellent as the eponymous lovers. From the opening scenes, their childish chemistry erases the years as they tickle, whip, pet and devour one another.... Walter is not immediately striking as the Egyptian queen, lacking in the stature and sultriness traditionally associated with the role, but when she reclines in her luminous gold cloak, she really does take on the bewitching mystery of a sphinx. Her capriciousness is a joy to behold.... Stewart is eminently watchable.... His Antony is mercurial, moving effectively from playboy general, giddy with lust and power, to an ageing drunk in a sweat-stained tunic, rocking on his heels and cradling his head in his hands as he loses his self-control."
The transfer of Gregory Doran’s production from the Swan has been long awaited. And the London first-night audience was not to be disappointed as Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter both give peerless performances as the doomed lovers. However, Doran doesn’t neglect the political machinations at the heart of the play and he delivers a heady mix of the political and the personal, while also drawing out more comedy than usual.
Stewart’s love-sick, fawning Antony is completely captivated by Walter’s sensuous but capricious queen, but there’s also a real sense that this is an Antony who still hungers to be a soldier and would easily settle for a night of hard drinking with the boys and a hard bed. Stewart brilliantly captures the way Antony is torn between his sexual desire and his military hunger.
But what also sets the production alight is the relationship between Octavius and Antony. John Hopkins’ twitchy, neurotic Caesar cannot disguise his envy of the virile, charismatic Antony, while Stewart is a man fully aware of his failing powers and resentful of the youth of his nemesis. Their relationship defines the play almost as much as that of the lovers and Doran brings out every nuance of this.
There’s also an excellent performance by Ken Bones as an Enobarbus whose cynicism is over-shadowed by self-hatred; trapped by his sybaritic lifestyle and his devotion to Antony.
I wasn’t lucky enough to see this at the Swan, where I’m sure the more intimate surroundings would have heightened the intensity of the drama. But with rock-solid performances all round, where every word is uttered with absolute clarity, and a good a central pairing as you can get, this is Shakespearean theatre at its best.
- Maxwell Cooter
Note: The following FOUR-STAR review dates from April 2006 and this production's earlier Stratford run.
It seems, on the face of it, wilful to stage the grandeur of Antony and Cleopatra in the intimacy of the Swan, while next door, Romeo and Juliet plays the main auditorium. With a struggle for the mastery of the world at its heart, Antony and Cleopatra is an epic if ever there was one, beside which Romeo and Juliet, with its two feuding Paduan families, is small potatoes.
The more so given the shortcomings of the production of Romeo and Juliet which, while attractive to look at, would work better in a smaller space. And if two actors could be relied on to command the hangar that is the RST, with all its acoustic shortcomings, those actors are Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter.
Happily, Gregory Doran's production of Antony and Cleopatra, which sees the welcome return of RSC veteran Stewart, sometime 'star-crossed' captain of the USS Enterprise, works admirably. By eschewing large sets and big effects, the focus is thrown on to the relationship at the centre of the play which is played with enormous skill, by Stewart as Antony, and Walter as Cleopatra.
The play moves fluently with pace and, throughout, there is the close attention to the text and telling detail that characterises Doran's direction. There's a lovely moment when, after bidding goodbye to Cleopatra to fight a second and decisive battle at sea, Cleopatra extends her arms to Antony who turns away.
It's a joy to watch - and listen to - actors of the calibre of Stewart, with those rich tones, and Walter, superb five years ago here in Macbeth. There's an early scare when Walter first appears, wearing an unconvincing wig. Happily, she soon removes it and, by the final monument scene, she is magnificent.
Stewart's performance perhaps doesn't quite match hers, but the production movingly bears out Auden's observation that the real enemy here is time from which Antony and Cleopatra are in flight. And one is reminded of Auden's view that, if he could save only one of Shakespeare's plays, this would be it.
Around the two stars, there’s stellar support, most notably from John Hopkins as a permanently simmering Octavius Caesar and Ken Bones as Enobarbus. Credit too to Peter de Jersey, who stepped in to take over the role of Pompey at short notice.
I found this interpretation of the play refreshing. Rather than playing it as a conventional love story, this production managed to get into the heart of the matter, where politics and love do not always see eye to eye: where Cleopatra, a political animal at heart, is willing to sacrifice her love for the survival of her nation whereas Antony was willing to sacrifice his career for love. Exactly the opposite of what you'd expect from an Egyptian and a Roman, resepctively. That is what made this play do interesting for me... There was a constant tension between what was "felt" and what was "done". With tremendous performances all around and beautiful set and costumes, this was an evening of pure but thought-provoking delight. - 194.82.244.129)
Opened 22 May 1905, originally the Waldorf, became the Strand in 1909 and the Whitney in 1911, back to the Strand in 1915. On 8 Oct 1940 the theatre was hit during a bombing raid - the show went on! There had been an earlier Strand Theatre where the Aldwych tube station now is that opened in 1832. 1061 seats. Member of the Society of London Theatre. On 25 March 2003 Delfont Mackintosh Theatres Limited, which had owned the freehold of the theatre since 1991, took over the management of the Strand from the Louis I Michaels Ltd Group of Companies when their lease expired. Delfont Mackintosh is now planning a 1.5 million refurbishment programme to restore the theatre to its former glory. May 2005 opened as Novello Theatre.
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