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.)

The Book of Rannells: Big Mouth: Season 1, Episode 1 – “Ejaculation” (2017)

 

This is a series that I reviewed generally after I watched season 1 the first time, but after I started The Book of Rannells, I went back to review each of Andrew Rannells’s episodes individually.  What a boldly irreverent and stunningly, uncomfortably real series.

7^th graders Nick and Andrew find their best friendship a little shaken after Nick accidentally sees Andrew’s penis.  Andrew is developing faster than Nick (he’s visited on the regular by a lusty Hormone Monster,) and Nick’s insecurities make things awkward between them.  It all comes to a head at the school dance.

As I’ve said, this is a hilarious, unflinching, preposterously dirty show that could only work as an animated series with adults voicing all the young characters.  Right from this first episode, we get into the crudeness of puberty but also the vulnerability that comes with it – I love the scene where Nick and Andrew both posture that they totally know how tongue-kissing works, and I like that, while Andrew’s Hormone Monster chiefly makes Andrew horny, he also pushes Andrew’s emotions into overdrive.

The episode is packed with one-liners and fantastically-funny bits.  The Hormone Monster predictably gets the most outrageous lines – I especially like him crooning, “‘Fallopian tube,’ what a savory word,” and trying to watch the sex scene from Dallas Buyers Club without thinking about AIDS – but everyone gets in some good ones.  Another of my favorites is Nick’s wildly-unfiltered mother telling Nick, “Your father’s penis is my glass slipper.”

Rannells, as I’ve said before, plays Matthew, one of Nick and Andrew’s classmates.  A minor character, Matthew is there mainly to comment on the lives of the other middle schoolers.  He’ll slide into a scene to toss off a devastating remark – by turns witty, catty, and downright venomous – then slide right out again.  For a collection of kids who are such a mess as they try to figure out puberty, Matthew seems entirely put together.  He’s every inch the stereotype of a bitchy gay man (albeit one who’s only 13,) is neatly dressed and perfectly coiffed, and is completely over everything, freely sharing his disdain for kids and teachers alike.

While, of the characters Rannells has played, Matthew seems to be the one that adheres most closely to stereotype, he’s still entertaining.  Here, I like him blithely announcing that he and Jessi (the female lead) are friends after hearing her make a sly comment, and in a previous post, I already mentioned my love for his summation of the state of affairs at the dance:  “Nick and Andrew.  You’re friends again.  Nick’s pants are gone.  The teachers look poor.  What the fuck is going on?”  It’s all in Rannells’s delivery, and it’s amazing.

Initial reactions (not quite, since I’m writing this having already watched the whole first season, but this is how these reviews go, and I’m too set in my ways veer off now!)

Recommend?

In General – Yes, as long as you don’t mind it being really dirty.  Smart, funny, and, while obviously heightened, very true to the tribulations of middle school.

Andrew Rannells – Very little to see so far, and most of what we get is very “been there, done that,” but the strength of the delivery on that one line was enough to make me want to see more.

Warnings

Tons of sexual content (including cartoon nudity,) language, and thematic elements.

Relationship Spotlight: Issa Dee & Molly Carter (Insecure)

 

I already brought up these two quite a bit when I reviewed Insecure, but I wanted to give them their own post. Some female-led shows are “Queen Bee” types, where the female lead is surrounded mostly by guys and, if anything, is kind of combative with other women. In others, the female lead has a female best friend who’s largely a one-dimensional supportive sounding board, while in others, there will be a female character who’s referred to as the female lead’s best friend, but the two are rarely seen really acting like friends. In Issa and Molly, Insecure spotlights a female friendship that’s incredibly deep and complex, and I love it (some Molly-Issa-related spoilers.)

Right from the pilot, the show places Issa and Molly’s relationship front and center. For a series that’s often about romance drama and career struggles, both are frequently filtered through the conversations Issa and Molly have about them, decompressing over dinner or drinks, hashing things out on a car ride, calling one another at work to vent, or engaging in a late-night soul-bearing session at one or the other’s apartment. Whether they’re giving each other advice or encouragement, or maybe just a good, “Girl, what were you thinking?!”, each is the person the other most wants to talk to when something big goes down.

I appreciate, first of all, that even though Issa is definitely the lead on the show, Molly isn’t framed in a subservient role to her as a character. That might seem like an odd thing to even note, given that Molly’s an ambitious lawyer and Issa is kind of floundering in the non-profit world, but I mean it in more of a meta way. Molly doesn’t exist solely as a person for Issa to talk about her problems to, and Molly absolutely has a full life going on outside of her scenes with Issa. What’s more, they both come to each other with their problems, and they both listen to each other. There’s nothing one-sided in the dynamic of their relationship.

Which is interesting, because that goes for their relationship’s good and bad qualities. Just as they both are often there to support each other, both sometimes get self-centered and take the other for granted. They’ve both taken advantage of the other, both let the other down in a really important moment. When they start to have a hard time in season 4, both begin to drift from the other, not prioritizing their friendship like they used to. Both recognize a problem and their own part in it, but at the same time, they both feel like the other isn’t noticing it the way they are and feel hurt by that.

Even though all that goes down between them here is hard to watch, I kind of love it too. Because it’s such a strong depiction of a slow-motion friendship breakup, and in watching how the relationship starts to splinter, we see on both sides how Issa and Molly are affected by it, how much it meant to them in the first place.

In a weird, awesome way, I’m a little reminded of Marvin and Whizzer in Falsettos. Those two start out much more openly competitive/combative with each other than Molly and Issa are, but the similarity lies in the way both pairs play emotional chicken with one another in a clinch moment. With Marvin and Whizzer, it’s about admitting that they love one another, and with Molly and Issa, it’s about being the first one to make an overture to acknowledge where their friendship has started to come undone and do something to try and fix it. Each feels let down by the other, thinking that they’re the one who’s always the first to apologize, always the one doing the work. So each digs in their heels and thinks, “Not this time. This time, she has to go first.” And all the while, they’re both being eaten up by missing each other, holding on to their perceived moral upper hand and being miserable about it. It’s a reckoning that’s a long time coming, and the show resists an easy answer to instantly knit everything back together.

In short, it’s the kind of engrossing plotline that you normally see devoted to a romantic relationship, and I so appreciate that we see it here in the context of a friendship.