Antony and Cleopatra (2018)

 

I had high hopes for this National Theatre Live play – I remember getting ads for it in my email when it was first being shown and unsuccessfully trying to find a showing that would work for me. Unfortunately, in my view, it doesn’t fully live up to its promise.

 

Mark Antony is one of Octavius Caesar’s most valuable generals. However, while in Egypt, Antony falls in love with Cleopatra. The relationship is intense, with a measure of obsession on both sides, and Antony’s two great affections – Cleopatra and Rome – wage war within him.

 

When I reviewed National Theatre Live’s Twelfth Night, I said that the mark of a great Shakespeare production is one where the language still feels clear and accessible to me even if I haven’t read the play recently. I’ll admit that Antony and Cleopatra is at a slight disadvantage from the start, since I’ve only read it once and don’t like it as much as Twelfth Night, but the mark stands. I don’t mean to say I don’t understand the play in this production – I follow things fine, and there are scenes here that I really like. But the rule of the day seems to favor delivery that feels recited rather than lived-in, with the speeches more pronounced than felt. This keeps me a little more on the surface of the piece, and the language doesn’t quite unfold to reveal its richness to me.

 

It’s a handsome production, a largely-modern interpretation with hints of ancient flourish, and the sets and costumes are all really nice. But I just don’t connect with it very much, and I was expecting to. After all, with the roles of Antony and Cleopatra in the hands of Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo, we have more-than-capable performers steering the ship. However, while Fiennes makes moments of real connection when it truly counts, he feels just a little distant to me for much of the proceedings. And Okonedo’s performance is truly enjoyable, but it doesn’t quite mesh with the tone of the rest of the production, a bit too broad to fit in well with the other characters.

 

The rest of the cast, by and large, fails to really connect, and again, that shouldn’t have been the case. For instance, Tim McMullan, who plays Enobarbus here, was Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. The roles have a lot of similarity between them, both comic-drunkard characters, but while McMullan is fantastic in Twelfth Night, I only find him serviceable here. Given that McMullan obviously knows his way around a Shakespeare drunk, coupled with Fiennes and Okonedo’s proven track records as phenomenal actors, there must be something else at play. It’s like, I know all these people can do this splendidly, so why does this production feel just that little bit lacking?

 

Before I go, I want to mention Tunji Kasim, who plays Caesar. I’d previously seen Kasim on the CW’s Nancy Drew as Nick, and until I saw him in this, I had no idea he was Scottish. I normally have a good ear for U.K. actors faking American accents, so nice job to Kasim on Nancy Drew!

 

Warnings

 

Sexual content/references, violence, drinking, and thematic elements (including suicide.)