Antony and Cleopatra 2018 Online Resources 2
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2018 ONLINE RESOURCES ONLINE RESOURCES ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA © Bell Shakespeare 2018, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, reproduced, and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools. Antony and Cleopatra 2018 Online Resources 2 ANTONY AND CAST CLEOPATRA 2018: Cleopatra Catherine McClements COMPANY LIST Antony Johnny Carr Enobarbus Ray Chong Nee Menas / Philo Joseph Del Re Pompey / Scarrus Lucy Goleby Octavia / Soothsayer / Eros Ursula Mills Charmian Zindzi Okenyo Octavius Gareth Reeves Agrippa / Demetrius Steve Rodgers Lepidus / Clown Jo Turner Alexas Janine Watson CREATIVES Director Peter Evans Designer Anna Cordingley Lighting Designer Ben Cisterne Composer & Sound Designer Max Lyandvert Movement & Fight Director Nigel Poulton Voice Coach Jess Chambers Assistant Director Penny Harpham Associate Costume Designer Emma Vine Cover image: 2018 Antony and Cleopatra, Photographer: Pierre Toussaint ONLINE RESOURCES ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA © Bell Shakespeare 2018, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, reproduced, and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools. Antony and Cleopatra 2018 Online Resources 3 ANTONY AND CREW CLEOPATRA 2018: Stage Manager Julia Smith COMPANY LIST Assistant Stage Manager Gina Bianco Head Electrician Andrew Hutchison Lighting Programmer Steve Hendy Head Mechanist Bob Laverick Deputy Head Mechanist Hayley Stafford Head of Audio Ryan Devlin Head of Costume Rosie Hodge Production Assistant Matthew Schubach Dresser Claire Westwood Costume Cutter Claire Westwood Costume Assistant Brooke Cooper-Scott Costume Secondment Eryn Burnett-Blue Production Work Experience Tigga Crome Set Built by MNR Constructions Lighting supplied by Chameleon Touring Systems Freight provided by ATS Logistics ONLINE RESOURCES ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA © Bell Shakespeare 2018, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, reproduced, and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools. Antony and Cleopatra 2018 Online Resources 4 BACKGROUND ONLINE RESOURCES ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA © Bell Shakespeare 2018, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, reproduced, and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools. Antony and Cleopatra 2018 Online Resources 5 BACKGROUND Antony and Cleopatra was most likely first TO THE PLAY performed around 1607 at the later end of Shakespeare’s career by the King’s Men, at either Blackfriars or The Globe Theatre. It didn’t appear in print until the publication of the First Folio in 1623, so if not for this collation of Shakespeare’s works any official copy of the play would be lost to us. Its classification into any particular genre has proved difficult. The play was originally titled a tragedy, but its comedic and romantic qualities are quite prominent. It is of course considered a Roman play but was also created amidst the final years of Shakespeare’s career where he Figure 1: First Folio, Antony was said to have produced a body of and Cleopatra (first page) experimental works called the Problem Plays. Antony and Cleopatra is also often described as a History, but like all of Shakespeare’s historical accounts it doesn’t exactly adhere to the facts. Shakespeare’s principle source for this work was Thomas North’s 1579 translation of Plutarch’s Lives: Life of Marcus Antonius. Although Shakespeare’s adaptation draws quite heavily upon this and even extracts original phrases, it also steers far from it. Shakespeare compresses military events, reduces Antony’s relationship with the young Octavia, fleshes out the role of Enobarbus and dramatically imagines a fuller reality for Cleopatra’s domestic world; and all to great dramatic effect. This play is often applauded for its imaginative qualities and its sublime and vivid use of dramatic language. Samuel Taylor Coleridge recognised a “giant power in its strength and vigour of maturity”, Patrick Stewart praises the play as “a kind of perfection, a sort of magic” and academic William Hazlitt claims it is “the finest of his history plays”. Shakespeare’s story unfolds in forty separate scenes (more than he used for any other play) and the action swiftly oscillates between two vastly different settings; the pleasure filled Egypt, and the austere Rome. So much so that the transition between the two worlds and the scenes is not jolting but rather fluid and filmic. The story maps the physical and emotional descent of Antony, who is no longer the vigorous revolutionary Shakespeare presented in his earlier work, Julius Caesar, but rather now a reckless middle-aged reveler consumed by his relationship with the “complex, charismatic and fierce” Cleopatra (Peter Evans 2017). Academics have often noted the coincidence that Shakespeare chooses to explore a middle-aged lover travelling through his 40’s when he was of that age. The relationship of the title characters is central to the action of the play ONLINE RESOURCES ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA © Bell Shakespeare 2018, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, reproduced, and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools. Antony and Cleopatra 2018 Online Resources 6 and the fate of the empire rests upon their passionate and often whimsical choices. Cleopatra is considered one of the most complex and challenging female roles in all of Shakespeare. Both she and Antony parade a vast spectrum of traits, from childish folly to utter magnificence, that challenge any other of Shakespeare’s title roles. The experimental form and the incongruent lead characters has attracted both criticism and compliment, fame and disregard, resulting in much heated conversation over what the play is about. Is it a political study of duty versus lust, an exploration of the decaying soldier, a tale of manhood being diluted by the powers of the seductress, the downfall of a skilled female leader or simply one of the greatest and most tragic love stories of all time? Perhaps all of the above. PLUTARCH’S LIVES AND MORALIA: Plutarch was a renowned Greek biographer and chronicler writing circa 50AD, and his works Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans was Shakespeare’s most prominent source for his series of Roman works. Plutarch’s Lives worked to reiterate the notion that true history exists in the biographies of great men. These narratives were extremely palatable to their audiences. They were avidly consumed and thus historical figures such as Caesar and Antony shaped Western history. Plutarch not only paid close attention to the life of Marcus Antonius / Mark Anthony but showed a great fascination in the complexity, moral ambiguities and playfulness of his relationship with the Egyptian Queen. Whether or not Plutarch blames Cleopatra entirely for Antony’s downfall is questionable, but his failings are most often discussed in relation to their all-consuming love. Plutarch states that Antony “was not his own man, that the soul of a lover lives in another body”. The most famous passage clearly drawn from North’s translation of Plutarch is the description of the meeting of Antony and Cleopatra at Cydnus, which historically took place in 41 BC. Rene Weis states that Enobarbus’ speech that begins with “The barge she sat in”, was clearly “written by Shakespeare with the relevant pages of Plutarch open in front of him.” Plutarch’s text reads: “ ...take her barge in the river of Cydnus, the poope whereof was of gold, the sailes of purple, and the oares of silver, which kept stroke in rowing after the sound of musicke of flutes, howboyes cithernes, vials and such other instruments as they played upon the barge. And now for the person of her selfe: she was layed under a pavilion of cloth of gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the goddesse Venus, commonly drawn in picture...” ONLINE RESOURCES ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA © Bell Shakespeare 2018, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, reproduced, and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools. Antony and Cleopatra 2018 Online Resources 7 Whereas Shakespeare’s text edits, adds and shifts the language to suit the iambic meter and build a dramatic lively scene: “ The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne, Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar’d all description: she did lie In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue— O’er-picturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork nature.” The two pieces of text are a great study of how Shakespeare animates his original sources. Shakespeare was also highly intrigued by the mysterious and sensual world of Egypt. His main source for insight into the Egyptian landscape was another text by Plutarch, The Moralia, translated into English in 1603 as The Philosophie, Commonly Called, The Morals, by Philemon Holland. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA: INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE HISTORY Although highly revered and renowned, Antony and Cleopatra cannot boast of a grand and popular history in the theatres. It has drawn much more attention in study than on the stage. When the theatres reopened in 1660 after being closed for almost 20 years, Antony and Cleopatra wasn’t on the program, in fact it didn’t see the stages until it was produced by David Garrick in 1759, and even then it only saw six performances and the text was cut almost in half. Fi g u r e 2: V iv i e n L e i g h a s Cl e o p a tr a, 19 51 The play’s popularity rose again in the late 19th century.