Review: Antony and Cleopatra: A Dream of Passion (The Divine)

Review by Dan Sinclair

⭐️⭐️

Adaptations of Shakespeare are a staple of British Theatre - Southwark Playhouse’s upcoming Julius Caesar is taking us into a future dystopia whilst Kenneth Branagh’s King Lear went the other way, back to a neolithic England with animal furs, stone knives and spears galore. Robert Chevara’s adaptation of Antony and Cleopatra moves the tragedy to the world of queer clubbing. Will the lovers find a way to hold onto their love as the whole world seems to conspire to pull them apart? 

Everyone knows the lovers and the Asp that bites Cleopatra, but Antony and Cleopatra is still one of the lesser performed Shakespeare plays. Often called a tragedy, it sits in that limbo of also being a romance, a history play, a comedy, a political play, a Roman play, a bit of everything. It's epic, unfamiliar and complex, often scaring off many a theatre director, however Robert Chevara boils the plot down to its core elements. A respected soldier in Rome, and hot off the assassination of Caesar, Mark Antony suns himself in Egypt with his lover Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt. Called back to Rome by the new emperor Octavius, Antony leaves promising his eternal love to Cleopatra. This doesn’t last long as Cleopatra hears of Antony’s marriage to the short and round-faced Octavia. There are pirates, great battles and betrayal, but the love between Antony and Cleopatra is unflinching. In one final act, Cleopatra decides to fake her own death to win back Antony and hear him profess his love again, however, this is a Shakespearean tragedy so I’m sure you can work out what happens next.

Originally a cast of 36, the play is reduced to just Antony, Cleopatra, Charmian and Dolabella (who functions as a stand-in for most of the missing roles). At the centre is Jonny Woo as Cleopatra, he holds the show together well and gives an overall powerful performance. Opposite him is William McGeough as Antony, the two have palpable chemistry and scenes between the two of them are raw and thrilling. Alexis Gregory as Charmian and activist legend Jonathan Blake as Dolabella don’t get as much opportunity to shine as the two star-crossed lovers, but instead have the responsibility of driving the complex political plot forward to get us to the climax. In the stripping back of the text, much of the story is incredibly hard to follow. If you focus on the ‘will they won’t they’ between Antony and Cleopatra, you’re fine. However, the political movements, pirates, wars and scheming are almost entirely lost. 

In Chevara’s adaptation, the action of Antony and Cleopatra is moved to the world of gay clubbing. There is an interesting premise here, with the potential to examine the hypersexual nature of the relationship between the two titular characters in Shakespeare’s original text within a space such as Berghain. The creative team clearly wanted to capture the lives of people who live their lives in these clubs, with all the pulsing music, amyl nitrate and darkrooms you could hope to expect. Unfortunately, it just never quite commits to this concept, rather it just plays out a fast-forwarded version of the original text with different costumes and casting. The occasional karaoke and kilt just leaves an audience feeling flat, with very little sex and drugs, and mostly just Shakespeare. 

A handful of musical segments showcased the excellent vocals of the cast, especially Jonny Woo who delivered some outstanding ballads. They injected the show with a much-needed shot of camp, but some of the song choices felt confusing. Classics such as Nina Simone’s My Way and (Love Lifts Us) Up Where We Belong felt at home in the world of queer cabaret, but other songs such as Lose Control by Teddy Swims felt at odds with the world of the play. I see that the lyrics align with Antony’s thoughts at that moment in the play, but it just doesn’t belong. 

For an adaptation that wants to capture this world on the stage radically, it lacks the much-needed music, lighting and fun. I truly want to see a sexy and queer adaptation of Antony and Cleopatra set in a basement club, unfortunately, this just wasn’t that. 

Antony and Cleopatra is showing at The Divine until 27th September.

Tickets from: https://thedivine.co.uk/event/antcleo/ 

Photos by Jane Hobson