Shakespeare is a genius; nonetheless, he’s probably the most overrated writer in history. Ben Johnson famously captured that sentiment over 400 years ago: “REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, ‘Would he had blotted a thousand,’ which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side of idolatry as much as any.”
I start my review thus because Antony & Cleopatra is one of those Shakespeare scripts I don’t much like, finding it far inferior to its prequel, Julius Caesar, which Long Beach Shakespeare Co. staged in January.
And yet there’s no question that I prefer this current show. It comes down to concept.
Let’s get you up to speed: Since the end of Julius Caesar, Marc Antony (again played by Dominic Ryan Gabriel, a nice bit of casting continuity), who emerged as part of a triumphant triumvirate in the civil war that followed the assassination of Caesar, has been in Alexandria so enjoying all kind of amorousness with Cleopatra (Angelina Green), that he’s not stayed on top of the goings-on in Rome. As the play opens, things have come to a head, with his wife dead after taking sides against Octavius (Justin Valine) and Rome threatened by a great maritime power. He’s gotta go home and attend to business — part of which turns out to be marrying Octavius’s sister (Julianne Holmquist) in order to further cement the triumvirate’s bond as they prepare for war. That doesn’t sit well with Cleo — but it doesn’t matter anyway, because soon enough Octavius vs. Antony for all the marbles.
However, director Christian Lee Navarro isn’t particularly interested in the play’s geopolitics; instead, he’s laser focused on the title characters’ grand amour. “Eternity was in our lips and eyes,” says the stage walls, echoing one of Cleopatra’s lines. Navarro shows us Antony & Cleopatra through the lens of all-consuming passion, where everything else — life, death, dynasty, empire — is out of focus.
The problem is that, even with this topiarian pruning of the Bard’s script — the entire show runs about 80 minutes, little more than half its typical runtime — the shape is compromised by unrelated branches sticking out everywhere. I don’t know that there’s anything else Navarro could have cut; he just has an intractable problem, where almost everything that isn’t about Tony & Cleo feels like a distraction.
That said, it’s a worthy effort that’s certainly well-served by a staging stripped of, well, damn near everything. Sitting on four sides — including the stage — the audience is given virtually nothing but the actors and their dialog. The blocking is intelligently constrained, often providing mere abstractions of the action. Even color is almost completely absent, with black walls, black clothing (well, that’s the concept: at the performance I saw it appeared a couple of actors hadn’t planned well on laundry day), with just a couple of patches of Egyptian(ish) décor. We’re meant to focus on nothing but Tony & Cleo’s passion — just like Tony & Cleo.
Overall, the cast is solid. Angelina Green does well with Cleopatra’s changeability, especially nailing the wry wit with which the Bard imbues her. And as Enobarbus, Connor Bowen doesn’t steal every scene he’s in so much as infuse his scenes with a naturalness you can’t help but notice. The biggest miss is having Arjun Lakshman play both Pompey and Mardian — not because of Lakshman’s performance(s), but Pompey is too conspicuous (especially sans any costume change) to have Lakshman also play a second role.
Where January’s Julius Caesar suffered for lack of scale, Christian Lee Navarro’s adaptation of Antony & Cleopatra smartly plays with Long Beach Shakespeare Co.’s limitations. Despite not being a complete success, would that all theatre were this thoughtful.
Antony & Cleopatra at Long Beach Shakespeare Company
Times: Fri–Sat 8:00 p.m., Sun 2:00 p.m.
The show runs through February 7.
Cost: $21.50 to $31.50 (including fees)
Details: (562) 997-1494; LBshakespeare.org
Venue: Helen Borgers Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach