Antony and Cleopatra

Edinburgh
by Ned Chaillet

Times 1977

        Prospect Theatre Company’s two productions of the love affair of Antony and Cleopatra are now the main theatre events at Edinburgh and tickets are hard to come by, although the great popular success of the festival thus far is the production of Carmen.  Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, with Dorothy Tutin as Cleopatra and Alec McCowen as Antony is the more standard of the two, with John Dryden’s All for Love as its complementary partner.

      Toby Robertson, directing Shakespeare, has failed to find the chemical combinations to stir any real passions, his lovers have their best moments with others and the most impressive displays of affection are the brief moments when Antony confronts Octavius Caesar, played with an impressive, calculating precision by Derek Jacobi.  The stylization of the production is subdued to Prospect’s Pericles and only the costuming, touches of the make-up and hints of incest between Octavius and his sister, Octavia, hint at the audacious theatricality of which Mr. Robertson is capable.

      Perhaps because the men show more loyalty and seem to have the stronger bonds, it is Timothy West’s performance as Enobarbus, Anthony’s faithful general, which is most perfectly formed.  Despite a limp as a result of an injury, Mr. West strides the stage with determination, cajoling every bit of humor from the part, and he makes Antony’s decline completely visible.

      Because Mr. Robertson keeps the staging clean, using the Assembly Hall as a vast Elizabethan theatre and presenting most of the action on the thrust of the stage, he makes the story quite clear, retaining the sense of the play without offering more than an occasional insight.

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