The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra

Right away the play catches you off-base, with a scene showing the title romance well underway. We don't get an insight as to how it began until Act 2, scene ii, by which time we have a pretty good idea these guys, unlike say Romeo and Juliet, are lovers crossed not by the stars but by themselves. Antony has a chip on his shoulder from knowing he deserves to rule over Rome and not serve in tandem with two lightweights. Cleopatra is a woman who likes to make her men dance, even to the point when it isn't good for her, but she's such fun and so luminous a presence even when she is the butt of the humor you have to love her with Antony's blind passion. Just watch her play Punch & Judy with a luckless messenger who has to tell her about Antony's new wife.

Two elements stand out in the reading of this play, beyond the glorious leads. The figure of Enobarbus, Antony's sardonic aide-de-camp, offers a great insight into the romance and the political backdrop with his cagy asides and singular wit. “That truth should be silent I had almost forgot,” he tells his boss, but it never really is with Enobarbus on the job.

The other element is “Antony And Cleopatra's” cinematic quality, with no less than 42 scenes set in Rome, Greece, and Egypt. Lovemaking, drinking, battles, and jump-cuts abound. There are longish scenes, like the final one, but even there the action moves fast. It might be considered a failing that so much of what happens on stage up until the last two acts is basically reaction action to storylines that occur off-frame, but Shakespeare makes the drama come so alive, and draws his focus so remarkably on his imperfect central lovers, that you only marvel at what he is able to accomplish without, say, a staged first meeting between Antony and Cleopatra, or a more direct falling out between Antony and Octavian Caesar.

One of the great attractions for me of reading this play is it works as a kind of antidote to Shakespeare's other celebrated romance. Romeo And Juliet are lovers in the full bloom of youth, toyed with by others' ambitions. Antony and Cleopatra are older and more in charge of their lives, yet make an even bigger hash of things. A street fight in Verona pales in comparison to Actium, yet I find Antony and Cleopatra as I get older far more rewarding company, with their refusal to live their lives in accordance with other's wants.