Olivier, London; Bristol Old Vic; Royal Court, London
Ralph Fiennes’s Antony grapples with a midlife crisis while Sophie Okonedo’s Cleopatra is the ultimate diva in an outstanding production at the National
We first meet Ralph Fiennes’s Antony hanging out in Egypt. His face has the expression of an experienced teaser; he wears a holiday shirt and is barefoot, with hippy beads dangling on his chest. At every stage in this outstanding Antony and Cleopatra, Fiennes is more a faulty, middle-aged man – having the midlife crisis to end them all – than a conquering hero. When this Antony goes to war, claiming himself to be a “man of steel”, and is strapped into some awkward-looking leather kneepads, he seems more flustered than bellicose. Even his death is a botched affair. But it’s this faulty humanity and vulnerability, this cutting of the character down to a friendly size (his delights might not qualify as dolphin-like – more as sprat-like?), that makes Fiennes’s Antony poignant and familiar and finally devastating. One sees that it is Cleopatra’s love that confers status. When he talks about the clouds and likens himself to them, saying his own self is about to disperse, one feels as sympathetic as if a friend were speaking – we all know Antony, or someone like him.
Sophie Okonedo’s Cleopatra is a rarer creature, the ultimate drama queen – a diva with, at one point, an explosively floral decolletage. Her sexual power is complicated by the airing of her insecurities. She harps on about “shrill-tongued Fulvia” but her own tongue is seldom silent. Bored and drunk in Antony’s absence, she gabbles on about “tawny-finned fishes” and, in layers of saffron silk, restlessly resembles one. She can be camp, intimidatingly gruff, syrupy. But this Cleopatra’s garrulous queenliness is an incomplete disguise for her answering vulnerability – there is no missing the exhaustion beneath her charm.
Continue reading...from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2DIoU4g
Comments
Post a Comment