Antony and Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare

filmed live performance from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre seen on 18 June 2015

This 2014 production was directed by Jonathan Munby and stars Eve Best as Cleopatra, Clive Wood as Mark Antony, Jolyon Coy as Octavius Caesar and Phil Daniels as Enobarbus.

The play criss-crosses the ancient world, from Egypt (Alexandria) to Rome, Sicily and the western shores of Greece (Actium), and dramatises the tumultuous relationship between Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, and Mark Antony, one of the three Roman leaders whose triumvirate was established after the wars following the death of Julius Caesar. The triumvir Lepidus is the weakest of the three, and so the military and political struggle for dominance in Rome becomes intensified in the personal animosity between Antony and the young Octavius Caesar.

This sprawling and complex historical situation is made clear by Shakespeare's brilliant adaptation of his sources (mainly Plutarch), and by the clear visual distinction in this production between the Egyptian and Roman worlds. Egypt is all soft generically oriental robes and thrilling rhythmical music. Rome is austere, darkly dressed in black doublets and small white Elizabethan ruffs, with military sashes of dark crimson or purple. The ebb and flow of events is always easy to follow with these visual cues, even when the director has chosen to have characters from both worlds on stage together when they could not possibly be together in the physical world (this is done principally to underscore the dramatic irony of the situation).

Eve Best is a superb Cleopatra, energetic, playful, wilful, intelligent and manipulative, but fundamentally in love. She prowls around the Globe stage completely in charge and at ease with its glorious opportunities for interacting with the audience, able to adjust her performance to almost any eventuality. (Indeed, when I saw the play live last year, she interpolated a line in the final act about Antony's spirit soaring above her when a pigeon fluttered across the stage.) Clive Wood presented a mature and strong Antony, at times bewildered by the turn of events in his life, but believably the commanding figure now gradually going to seed.

The general dissipation of the Egyptian world was in strong contrast to the puritanical rectitude of Octavius Caesar, who is on the whole uncomfortable with any emotional display. He is even more ill at ease with military camaraderie, primly revolted and embarrassed by the drinking games he has to endure with his fellow triumvirs when they treat with young Pompey. Jolyon Coy emphasised the cringing embarrassment without quite making him a prig, so that it was possible to believe that he was more than a caricature, even though he remains an unattractive figure.

Enobarbus, the worldly wise friend of Antony who defects to the Roman camp then dies in remorse, was played in all the early scenes as always slightly enebriated. Though this is plausible as a Roman response to the perceived laxity of Egyptian morals and mores (the Romans were deeply contemptuous of foreign ways), and also as an indication that Enobarbus is personally uncomfortable about the course Antony has chosen, it lacks subtlety in Phil Daniels' interpretation; the man is often in danger of becoming merely a pub bore. Perhaps the generally broad-brush approach required for the open-air Globe stage increases the problem. One unfortunate result is that the great - and greatly poetic - speech about Cleopatra on the Nile loses a good deal in the telling.

In general, though, the stage is ideal for presenting this story. The sweep of the action, the sense of great political significance, and the spectacle of an intense and extravagant personal relationship are all served well; after all Cleopatra's madcap and vertiginous changes of mood, the eerie serenity of her stillness in death on the winged throne of Egypt is a fitting conclusion to a great performance.