Antony and Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 2nd January 2019

Simon Godwin directs Ralph Fiennes as Antony, Sophie Okonedo as Cleopatra, Tunji Kasim as Octavius Caesar and Tim McMullan as Enobarbus in a production sumptuously designed by Hildegard Bechtler making inspired use of the famed Olivier drum revolve to resolve the difficult task of transferring quickly the scene of action across various sites in the Mediterranean world (though the programme informs us that the play is set in 'an imagined present').

Boldly, the play here opens with the final tableau of the text, Caesar pronouncing (most of) the final eulogy, and then Agrippa taking parts of Philo's opening speech as if commenting on the denouement rather than setting the scene. At this point the revolve reveals the Egyptian scene and the body of Cleopatra becomes the Queen lazily awaiting the arrival of her lover. 

The two principals are well matched, she mercurial and assured (to the point of fateful blindness), he revelling in his self-indulgence and increasingly unable to revive his political and military astuteness as the play progresses. Both Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okenedo radiate authority and stage presence, no mean feat in the unforgiving Oliver stage, and those around them defer to their charisma.

The portrayal of Caesar is not as sharply contrasted as in some productions I have seen; Tunji Kasim gives us a more mature picture (the historical Octavius was 32 by the close of the play), reserved but not repressed, with a classy Scottish burr that indicates smooth political confidence. Agrippa, in this instance played by a woman (Katy Stephens), can hardly be a bluff military presence, but is instead brisk and efficient, while Octavia (Hannah Morrish) echoes her brother's regional accent; their relationship is more formal than (for example) in last year's RSC production.

Tim McMulan's Enobarbus is richly toned and confident, able to deliver the great set-piece speeches about Cleopatra's magnificence and allure with resounding clarity and conviction, a more satisfactory method than undercutting them with poor verse speaking (as I have heard done elsewhere). The despairing and bitter self-recrimination of his end perhaps eludes him, but it is a strong characterisation.

The transfer to a 'present' setting works fairly well despite the slight incongruity of equating modern bomb-proof clothing with armour (though doubtless authentic Roman armour was not available on the Jacopbean stage either); and the necessity of swords for the suicide scene is overcome with the use of unpleasant looking knives. In the larger scheme of things, the Egyptian court looks convincingly louche, and the Roman theatre of operations more clinical, while Pompey's ship is cleverly construed as a modern battleship impressively emerging out of the depths of the drum revolve.

It is a long performance - nearly three and a half hours - but even so there are cuts to the text; some time is required for the wordless battle scenes and the geographical shifts. The incongruous jokiness of the 'clown' who provides the fig basket with its 'worm' is replaced by the brief re-appearance of the soothsayer from an earlier scene, who says very little; the typical Shakespearean conjunction of broad comedy with high tragedy is thus omitted to give a more headlong rush to Cleopatra's demise. More seriously, the part of Dolabella, the officer from Caesar's camp who tips the queen off about the real fate which his master has planned for her, is inexplicably taken by Octavia, who of course in the original play does not reappear after her humiliating discovery that Antony has abandoned her. It was a false note to engineer a meeting of these two rivals which the text does not support - Dolabella's question 'you have heard of me?' and Cleopatra's answer 'I cannot tell' sound particularly inept when the question is reassigned to Octavia, especially as nothing more can be made of it.

The grandeur and sweep of the production are both exemplary, and the performances of the two leads justly praised (each won an Evening Standard Theatre Award at the end of 2018); but there are still some slight flaws in bringing one of the most complex of Shakespeare's plays to the stage.