Shakespeare Uncovered

ANNOUNCER

Coming up on "Shakespeare Uncovered"... O, my oblivion is the very Antony... Kim Cattrall and the ancient world's most famous power couple-- Antony and Cleopatra. How it hurts. It's sort of like a sadistic lover situation, where you say, "Hate me, love me, kiss me."

WOMAN

We're watching the destruction of a relationship from the beginning of this play. It's much more interesting than just a love story. CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

The strength of this woman, it really is inspiring.

JONATHAN BATE

In Shakespeare's time, marriage for love was dangerous, and the play precisely explores this.

NARRATOR

"Antony and Cleopatra" with Kim Cattrall on "Shakespeare Uncovered."

CATTRALL

2,000 years ago, two of the most powerful people in the world met and fell in love. This is the story of a Roman general who fell obsessively in love with an Egyptian queen, causing an epic clash between two ancient cultures. An epic play demands epic characters, so Shakespeare created perhaps his biggest ever female role, that of Cleopatra. Take in that kingdom, enfranchise that-- perform or else we damn thee.

ANTONY

O, my love. It's the only play in the world where the woman has a really interesting part. What have you done...

CATTRALL

And alongside Cleopatra is Antony, her doting lover.

Singing

CATTRALL

I think I had more fun playing Mark Antony than any other Shakespearian character I've ever played. It's a story that has captured our imaginations from the start. It's Shakespeare's masterpiece, "Antony and Cleopatra." There are no other characters like any of the characters in "Antony and Cleopatra." Cleopatra is one of the greatest roles for an actress, one that I've been lucky enough to play twice. Oh, that's exactly what I want to do here, "But I don't like, but yet." It's really "Rah!" But even though I played the part and I know the play, I still have questions I want answers to. How much of the real Cleopatra lives in Shakespeare's play, and did she die for love or politics?

MAN

His captain's heart transformed into a strumpet's fool-- behold and see.

CATTRALL

This is what many people think of when they imagine "Antony and Cleopatra"-- fabulous locations, sets, costumes, a glamorous love story. It's starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and in 1963, it was one of the most expensive movies ever made. Fabulous feast. One is so limited when one travels by ship. I love this movie. It's really fun. It's not Shakespearian, it's not in verse, it doesn't have the-- well, the more complicated overtones and undertones that the original play does, but it does have some magic, great costumes, and fight scenes, and it does define how people perceive Cleopatra today. What I feel I should have felt long ago when I was very young. CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

3 people are credited with writing the screenplay for this movie. Unfortunately, not one of them is William Shakespeare. It's life-- how it hurts, how love can stab the heart. I love you, I love you, Antony! The original "Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra" is one of Shakespeare's later plays. This is not the teenage love story of "Romeo and Juliet." Cleopatra is the-39-year old queen of Egypt, and Antony, one of the 3 leaders of the Roman world, is 53. This is the story of their tempestuous love affair as it implodes in a Roman Empire split by political turmoil.

BATE

In many ways, this is the climax of Shakespeare's career in tragedy. It's Shakespeare writing on a vast stage, writing for a huge canvas. It's a play that takes on the whole world-- the world of politics, of history, and of love. What sport tonight? Hear the ambassadors! O, fie, wrangling queen. When I was 11 years old, I was lucky enough to be taken to Stratford on Avon by my aunt, and I saw this wonderful actress called Janet Suzman, who inspired to me unknowingly to be an actress. Excellent falsehood! CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

Janet also starred in a television version of her "Antony and Cleopatra." This was a Cleopatra to be reckoned with-- earthy, sexual, powerful, passionate, and incredibly intelligent. I will be even with thee, doubt it not. But why, why, why? Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars and says it is not fit.

CATTRALL

Janet Suzman has not only played a definitive Cleopatra. She recently directed the play, as well, and asked me to take on the role. I jumped at the chance. O my oblivion is the very Antony, and I am all forgotten.

SUZMAN

Kim, when I played it, I was a bit too young for it frankly, and I felt that then. You did? And one of the reasons I was so thrilled to be able to explore it with you, who were the right age and the right stage to broach this creature, was that we could re- explore it together in a more mature-- In middle age. Yes. Yes. Because this is a middle-aged relationship. Hollywood plays to the gallery. Hollywood is the one that plays two people wanting a love story. Mm-hmm. Now I'm not mocking it because it's a love story. I'm mocking it because it gives only half the story. We're watching the destruction of a relationship from the beginning of this play. It's much more interesting than just a love story. Mm-hmm. He was disposed to mirth, but on a sudden, a Roman thought hath struck him.

Laughter

SUZMAN

Enobarbus. Madam? Seek him and bring him hither. My Lord approaches!

CATTRALL

This is of course a tragedy about the inevitable conflict between two different ways of life-- the Roman and the Egyptian. We will not look upon him.

GAIL KERN PASTER

One of the keys to understanding Antony's personality is that Antony wants to have the admiration, loyalty of contradictory realities. He wants to be a Roman for the Romans, he wants to live up to his reputation, he wants to live up to what it is to be Mark Antony in Roman terms. For Cleopatra, he wants to be the lover she asks him to be. For Antony to reconcile those demands seems to be almost an impossibility, which is why he keeps changing from moment to moment.

CATTRALL

Cleopatra is clearly irresistible. Antony may have a wife back in Rome, but his love for the Egyptian Queen has turned him away from his duties both as the noble Roman ruler of the eastern Empire and as a husband. What are you? Fulvia thy wife is dead. Where died she? In Sicyon. Her length of sickness. But when at the start of the play he receives the news that his wife has died, Antony has no choice but to travel back to Rome. I must from this enchanting queen break off. Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know, my idleness doth hatch. CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

I'm in London at the Globe Theatre to drop in on a rehearsal of one of the play's early scenes.

MAN

Let's start by reading it, and then we might stop.

CATTRALL

Antony has returned to Rome. Rome and Egypt are portrayed very differently. Here, it's patrician pragmatic politics rather than passions that rule. Octavius Caesar, Antony's fellow ruler of the Roman Republic, is unimpressed by Antony's erotic Egyptian adventures. In an effort to secure Antony's continuing loyalty to Rome, love is just a negotiating ploy. Speak, Agrippa. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side, admired Octavia. Great Mark Antony is now a widower. To make you brothers and knit your hearts in an unslipping knot, take Antony Octavia to his wife. By this marriage, all little jealousies which now seem great, and all great fears, which do import their dangers, would then be nothing.

BATE

The plan for Antony to marry Octavius' sister is a pivotal point in the play. In aristocratic and royal circles in Shakespeare's time, marriage was entirely a political matter. The idea of marriage for love was dangerous, and the play precisely explores this. Let me have thy hand. Further this act of grace, and from this hour, the heart of brothers govern in our loves and sway our great designs. There is my hand. A sister I bequeath you who no brother did ever love so dearly.

Laughter

BATE

CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

Cleopatra's messenger returns to Egypt to bring her news that Antony is now married to someone else. Not a happy task. Madam, madam. Antony is dead! If thy say so, villain, thou killst thy mistress, but well and free...

CATTRALL

In the BBC's 1981 version, the role of Cleopatra is played by Jane Lapotaire. First madam, he is well. Why, there's more gold! Cleopatra knows that her emotional and political future now depends on whatever has happened in Rome. Madam, he's well. Well said. And friends with Caesar. Thou art an honest man. Caesar and he are greater friends than ever. Make thee fortune! But yet, madam. I do not like "but yet." It does allay the good precedence. Fie upon "but yet." The Globe actors are rehearsing this scene. It is a famous one. Hey. Hello. Can I join? CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

What I love about Cleopatra are her wildly fluctuating mood swings, but for the actor playing the role, they are a challenge, and for the messenger, they're a nightmare. There's huge tension in this scene. It's sort of like a sadistic lover situation where you say, "Hate me, love me, kiss me," you know. Exactly, exactly. When I told Peter Hall that I was going to play this, he said, "You must remember one thing, "that this character changes on a sixpence. "She changes in the middle of line, "in the end of a line. She's just all over the place." He doesn't know what's going to come at him. Yeah, and nor does-- It's fun to play. Exhausting but fun to play. And the point is, nor does she know what's going to come out. She doesn't know whether she's gonna.. No, no, no, no. There's a tiny pause-- "He's dead. No, he's alive. OK, I'll make you rich. I'll have a fab--no." She's like crazy. Exactly, exactly. If thou say Antony lives, is well or friends with Caesar or not captive to him, I'll set thee in a shower of gold and hail rich pearls upon thee. Madam, he is well. Well said. And friends with Caesar. Thou art an honest man. Caesar and he are greater friends than ever. Make thee a fortune from thee. But yet, madam. I do not like "but yet." It does allay the good precedence. Yeah. It's almost l like-- she also has that great sense of humor. "I do not like but yet. "You're gonna to get it now. Don't you give that to me."

BATE

"Don't shoot the messenger," the saying goes. Well, both Antony and Cleopatra do shoot the messenger, or at least they beat up the messenger. It is a tragedy with powerful elements of comedy. I think there's a fright of her coming that close to you. It's not--you know, she has so much power, and you have nothing. So her coming close to you could be-- it's a threat every single moment. It really, really is. OK. CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

Finally, the messenger does manage to deliver the fateful news of Antony's marriage. Madam, madam, he's married to Octavia! The most infectious pestilence upon thee! Good madam, patience! What say you? Hence... horrible villain, or I'll spurn thy eyes like balls before me. Thou shall be whipped with wire and stewed in brine, smarting in lingering pickle. Gracious madam, I that did bring the news made not the match. She's extraordinary, and what she offers any actress is the most amazing variety of moods and gestures and postures. Madam, he's married to Octavia. The most infectious pestilence upon thee!

PASTER

The thing about Cleopatra always is that she always is playing for an audience. She's always performing for the onstage audience, and the onstage audience are the stand-ins for us. She recognizes herself as an icon. He is married? I cannot hate thee worser than I do if thou again say yes. He's married, madam. The gods confound thee!

DIRECTOR

Good. OK. OK. Yeah. Scary. Just keep hitting him. He's fine. Sorry. CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

Dame Harriet Walter played Cleopatra with Sir Patrick Stewart as her Antony in a 2006 RSC production of the play.

WALTER

The thing that daunts a woman, I think, is this idea of somebody who has this affect on every man she encounters, and everybody falls in love with her, and if you have never been known for that quality, you think, "Where am I going to get it from?" If it were just beauty with a lot of makeup and help and distance on the auditorium, you could perhaps achieve that, but it's not about beauty. It's about her brain, it's about her mind, it's about her verbal dexterity, so I finally found gosh, if you say those words and commit to them in that way and you follow the rhythms and the double-backs and the tactics that she's got, he's done it for you. Mm-hmm. Yes. She's--she's a consummate actress, isn't she? She is a total actress. She's always on the world stage, and many Shakespeare heroines and heroes are very conscious of the fact that they're on a world stage.

CATTRALL

Shakespeare creates such an astonishing dramatic character in Cleopatra that it's easy to forget that he based her on a real Egyptian queen. We know that Shakespeare's main source for the play was a book by the Greek author Plutarch that was already 1,500 years old, but I'm interested to know how much Shakespeare has played with the historical reality to write his tragic love story.

Siren

CATTRALL

And ironically, it's back in Antony's hometown of Rome that I've come to a special exhibition exploring Cleopatra's history. Cleopatra was from a dynasty called the Ptolemies. They ruled Egypt for 300 years, and Cleopatra was the last of this line. And here she is. Queen Cleopatra VII, possibly the most famous queen that ever lived, the last of the Ptolemies. 2,000 years ago, Egypt was effectively under Roman control, and to protect her subjects, Cleopatra had to make tough political and personal decisions. She had affairs and children with the two great Roman leaders of the age, first Julius Caesar and then with Antony. Was it love, or was it politics?

MAN

For someone like Cleopatra, the problem is that there was no idea of any order of succession. Any Ptolemy could be king or could be queen, and as a result, the most dangerous people you faced were your own family. If you look at it, Cleopatra's father executed her older sister, Cleopatra herself gets Julius Caesar to bump off one brother, probably poisons the other brother herself, and gets Mark Antony to execute her remaining sibling, her sister. And she did that in the full knowledge that they would have done the same thing to her if they'd had the opportunity. So you live in a climate of fear. Staying in power was about the only way to stay alive. That Cleopatra did this for ore than 20 years was an incredible achievement, and it highlights that she was a great political survivor. So when she has these affairs with Caesar, with Mark Antony, politics is there behind the scenes all the time. She needs this Roman support. In many respects, the Cleopatra you have in Shakespeare's play is quite close to the Cleopatra of history.

Camera shutter clicks

MAN

What's really thrilling about this is seeing a character that you've imagined and played, but then there she is in real life. I did not see him since. See where he is, who's with him, what he does. I did not send you. If you find him sad, say I am dancing. If in mirth, report that I am sudden sick. Quick and return. CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

Politics played such an important role in the lives of Cleopatra and Antony that it's even caused some to question whether in Shakespeare's play he intended their love to be real or simply for political convenience. Vanessa Redgrave has played Cleopatra on numerous occasions.

REDGRAVE

Antony-- I am convinced, does not love her. No. I am convinced he does not love her. He never loved Cleopatra? He's turned on, excited by her, but why is he so excited by her? It's not because of her boobs, it's not because of her skin. No. He's excited by being with the top, top woman in the world. He does not love her. But he needs her. He needs her.

CATTRALL

Whatever Antony did or did not feel for Cleopatra, she clearly saw something in the aging Roman, but what? To find out more about his background, I have to look at Antony's first appearance in Shakespeare in another play called "Julius Caesar."

Fanfare, cheering

CATTRALL

In this, earlier play, Julius Caesar, leader of the Roman Republic, is assassinated. Antony, then a senator, resolves to defeat the assassins. Speaking at Caesar's funeral, the young, passionate Antony is given one of Shakespeare's most iconic speeches, a masterpiece of cloak and dagger rhetoric.

Cheering

MAN

Hear the words that have echoed through the ages. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

MAN AS ANTONY

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar.

CATTRALL

I'm back at the Globe Theatre, where they're rehearsing this speech. Antony is clearly a cunning politician. Under the guise of praising the conspirators, he's actually undermining them. The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault. And grievously has Caesar answered it. "Julius Caesar" is thought to be one of the first plays performed at the Globe in 1599. Just listening to this speech, you can imagine the impact that it had on an Elizabethan audience.

MAN AS ANTONY

honorable man... When that the poor hath cried, Caesar hath wept. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, but Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man. Was this ambition?

Cheering

MAN AS ANTONY

When comes such another? Never! Never!

CATTRALL

By the end of the speech, Antony has expertly turned the mob against the conspirators. Brutus is an honorable man.

Cheering

CATTRALL

Someone who can appreciate Antony's use of rhetoric is Alastair Campbell, one of Britain's best known political spin doctors.

TONY BLAIR

I vow that class sizes will be down in primary schools and standards up in...

CATTRALL

Working in the Labour Party before and during their years in power, he wrote many speeches for the former Prime Minister Tony Blair....of England. And Brutus is an honorable man! So, Alastair, how would you rate Shakespeare as a political speechwriter? I think he'd have been as good as anybody. Mm-hmm. And what was interesting about that-- if you read the words on the page, there's all sorts of different ways you can take it. He never says anything negative about anyone does he? No, but the tone and the constant repetition of "honorable," irony, "ambition," when he clearly doesn't believe that that was the reason why he was killed. And slowly you see in this clip the mob, the ugly mob, turning. It is manipulation. Is that part of what politicians do? Well, I think certainly. To get them on their side. I mean, people see manipulation as a very bad thing. A negative thing, yes. But actually if you are trying to--what you are trying to do is you are-- it is a performance, and you're--in a sense, the crowd, the audience is part of the performance. And I don't think that's a bad thing because the purpose of a big speech is to connect with the public, most of whom aren't there, but part of their connection is seeing the experience of the crowd. CATTRALL,

VOICE-OVER

Even today, speechwriters still use Shakespeare's techniques, as Barack Obama here in this 2009 election campaign, seemingly praises his opponents and even uses the concept of "honor." All of the candidates in this race have good ideas, and all are patriots who served this country honorably. I think he's doing a little bit of an Antony, isn't he? Not quite as heavy....with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people-- "Yes, we can. Yes, we can." It's amazing, isn't it? In the sense that he's using the same technique really of these buzzwords put together-- "Caesar is an honorable man," "Yes, we can"-- all of these seem to be part of what is needed in a speech to grab the imagination. Yes, we can. I think, of all these great speeches, there's nothing that-- there's nothing Shakespeare didn't write. Or, thou, the greatest solider of the world, art turned the greatest liar. How now, lady.

CATTRALL

"Antony and Cleopatra" is seemingly Shakespeare's sequel to "Julius Caesar," but over a decade later, Antony is no longer the man he once was.

SUZMAN

And what's interesting really is how different the two Roman history plays are of Shakespeare's. Lady! Because "Julius Caesar" is this soldierly, wonderful Antony. Mmm. The hero. The hero. Mmm. And "Antony and Cleopatra," as if it was written in another era, another time-- that Antony's gone. We have the struggle of two Antonys, the reputation of the Antony that was and the present muddled and love-struck soul. Come. Our separation so abides and flies that thou residing here goes yet with me, and I hence fleeting here remain.

CATTRALL

Opposite Janet Suzman's Cleopatra, Richard Johnson played Antony.

JOHNSON

I felt when I came back to Antony when I was in my 60s that I was better suited to the part. I was coming to the point in my career where the great leading parts were probably closing down on me rapidly, and that is in a way how it is for Antony. He was on the skids by then. both these people, the hero and the heroine-- she's at the end of her life as a sex symbol, and she knew it, and she knew that those things upon which she had relied probably wouldn't help her now.

CATTRALL

Every actor has to develop a way of justifying Antony's somewhat wayward behavior. Sir Patrick Stewart, in rehearsal here, played Antony in 2006....nourishes our nerves and can get goal for goal of youth! STEWART,

VOICE-OVER

One of the things that helped me to play Antony was to decide that he was an alcoholic and that drink was a way of helping to hide from some of the obvious questions that he ought to have been asking himself, and he doesn't ask them. Somewhere, he must have a sense that Cleopatra is a really bad idea. I remember once showing a friend of mine-- somebody I'd started dating years ago, and I showed a photograph of her to my friend, and he looked at it, and he said, "Run," and he proved to be absolutely right! That's what I should have done. I should have run. And really that's what-- really what Antony should have done--run. CATTRALL, To me, the idea of following "Julius Caesar" with the extraordinary story of "Antony and Cleopatra" seems obvious, so it raises the question-- why did Shakespeare wait 6 years before writing this sequel? It seems he timed this play quite carefully.

BATE

Once Queen Elizabeth was dead, Shakespeare in a sense was free to write about a queen, to make a Queen the center of a play. So Cleopatra, this extraordinarily charismatic figure from ancient Egypt, in some ways is Shakespeare letting his hair down after all those years of inhibiting himself in front of Queen Elizabeth. I'm not saying Cleopatra is a direct representative of Queen Elizabeth, but I think audiences would have seen some resemblances. Elizabeth was famous for using her sexuality as a political tool, she was famous for her temper and for her wit, and all these things of course, Cleopatra has absolutely in spades. The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, burned on the water.

CATTRALL

Cleopatra clearly had the power and the personality to captivate anyone she met, and Shakespeare gave the most famous of all the speeches praising her not to an Egyptian but to a Roman, Antony's right-hand man Enobarbus.

WALTER

Enobarbus is part of the whole sort of-- he made--he helps make the myth. He's the one that says--you know, describes that-- The barge! Yes, yes. The barge, you know, and is partly in love with her himself. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies, for vilest thing become...

CATTRALL

This famous speech, the barge speech, gives us a fascinating insight into Shakespeare's mind at work. Plutarch's book, containing a detailed account of the lives of Antony and Cleopatra, was translated into English by Sir Thomas North, and we know that this very translation is the one that Shakespeare used. How do we know this? From that very same barge speech.

BATE

Looking at the raw material, you almost feel as if you're in the room with Shakespeare, looking over his shoulder. Every single detail is there, but each detail that Shakespeare takes he brings alive, he turns it into a poetic image. So you can read the speech in Plutarch, listen to Enobarbus' development of that, and you can exactly see how Shakespeare's poetic imagination works.

CATTRALL

It's certainly true that the similarities between the two texts are remarkable. I wonder what Plutarch would have thought if he'd heard the words he wrote... She set forward in her barge in the River of Cydnus. turned into immortal poetry by William Shakespeare. The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, burned on the water. The poop whereof was of gold, the sails purple. The poop was beaten gold, purple the sails, and so perfumed that the winds were lovesick with them. She was laid under a pavilion of cloth of gold tissue, appareled and attired like the goddess Venus. She did lie in her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue, o'er-picturing that Venus. And hard by her, on either hand of her, pretty fair boys appareled as painters do set forth god Cupid. On each side her stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids. With little fans in their hands, with the which they fanned wind upon her. With divers-colored fans, whose winds did seem to glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, and what they undid did. 6 of Shakespeare's tragedies are set in ancient Greece or Rome, but in "Antony and Cleopatra," his historical subject would really stretch the boundaries of what you could do in any conventional theater. "Antony and Cleopatra" is one of the more cinematic plays that Shakespeare wrote. No wonder it's been made so many times into movies. The action starts in Alexandria, and then Antony leaves Cleopatra to go back to Rome. Now this was a fair distance for Antony to travel, but he kept being drawn back to Cleopatra. This silent movie-- although shot in 1913-- isn't the first screen adaptation of the story, but it certainly rose to the challenge, and despite the restrictions of the technology of the time, they used material shot on location in both Italy and Egypt.

BATE

There are more scenes in "Antony and Cleopatra" than in any other Shakespearian play. He works on a bigger canvas than he had ever done before or ever would again. He's trying to show the whole ancient world-- Rome, Egypt, and everything in between, and it's almost cinematic in a way. He jump cuts between Rome and Egypt. He sweeps across the battlefield, there's a succession of short scenes. I think Shakespeare's deliberately pushing the boundaries of the theater to its extreme.

CATTRALL

Antony, despite his marriage to Octavia, cannot resist returning to Cleopatra. His rival Octavius Caesar uses that as one more excuse to take sole power of the empire. He gathers an army and sets sail to challenge Antony to battle. The worlds of Rome and Egypt are about to collide. Such a cinematic play might be well suited to an extravagant Hollywood film set, but Shakespeare had no such facilities. In fact, it's thought that Shakespeare and his company did perform the play in a small theater called the Blackfriars on the north side of the Thames. An indoor theater lit entirely by candlelight, seating only a tenth of the people that could fill the main Globe Theatre, the performances in this intimate space were probably aimed at the educated and more wealthy elite of London. Hello, Dominic. Next door to the modern Globe Theatre, they've recently completed a copy of this space. To give me a tour is the Globe's artistic director Dominic Dromgoole. Oh my God! It's magical. Isn't it gorgeous? It is. It's beautiful! It's a funny mix of tiny wee and quite capacious. Wow! The candlelight. It's very forgiving, isn't it? Ha ha ha! Don't we all love it? So you could play Cleopatra in your 80s, 90s. You could play Cleopatra forever! Forever! But a big effect on costumes, as well, in that--you know, it makes sense of what ruffs are. Ruffs look a bit daft occasionally, but a ruff is a lighting system. Oh, yes! A ruff is a bounce back up to your face. We used that on "Sex and the City." We would always ask for the tablecloths to be white so you had another source. So you had a bit extra! Yes. Do you think that because of the Elizabeth Taylor and the pomp and circumstance of that film when people come to the theater they expect to see all of that? Because the two productions that I've done have been very pared down, very simple, and some people-- my mother was like, "I wanted--I wanted Hollywood," you know. Yeah, yeah. What are the challenges of staging a play like "Antony and Cleopatra," which is huge, in a space this intimate? I think it's more opportunities than challenges. Why they used to do it in here-- and they used to love doing it in a small space-- because you can play that love story in a chamber mode, and you can play the truth of it, and you can play two, you know, wonderfully delicate egos negotiating each other and negotiating their way round each other with a sort of gentle truth. It's quite beautiful, isn't it? A theater by candlelight. So inviting. The audience is right there, but it is a very intimate space between the actors. It begs to be played, this theater. But in this play, intimacy is always in conflict with the big political events. Is it not strange, Canidius, that from Tarentum and Brundusium he could so quickly cut the Ionian Sea and take in... Octavius' army is now on the horizon. Celerity is ever more than by the negligent. A good rebuke, which might have well become... Antony has his own troops, made up of Cleopatra's forces and some of his own loyal soldiers, but against everyone's advice, Antony decides to fight Octavius at sea. Your ships are not well manned, your mariners are muleters, reapers, people ingrossed by swift impress. In Caesar's fleet are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought. Their ships are yare, yours, heavy. No disgrace will fall you for refusing him at sea, being prepared for land. By sea, by sea! Most worthy sir, you therein throw away the absolute soldiership you have by land. I fight at sea. I have 60 sails, Caesar none better. But of course Caesar does have better. Cleopatra's navy retreats, doting Antony follows suit, and the private passion of the famous lovers leads to a very public defeat.

SUZMAN

I mean, it's so carefully calibrated, this play. We think it's an intimate love story, but it really isn't. There are soldiers and watchers and serving people, and they are always on show, in public. You always look for in the Shakespeare plays the public and the private. There's hardly any private in this play. It's all enacted in public.

CATTRALL

Even their final failure is in public when Cleopatra and her fleet surrender to Octavius. Vile lady. Desperate and ashamed, she retreats to her monument and sends word to Antony that she's killed herself. Dead, then? Dead. For Antony, this proves to be the final blow. Unarm, Eros. He has a complete breakdown of the kind that is kind of, to me, reminiscent of somebody who's absolutely breaking down into madness. Thinking his great love is dead, Antony is a broken man, and he decides to die a hero's death in true, Roman fashion... I will o'ertake thee. Thy master dies thy scholar-- to do thus I learned of thee.

Gags

CATTRALL

by falling on his own sword, but even here, he fails. Ohh! How now! Not dead, not dead.

SUZMAN

He makes every mistake... Right. from the word go. Aah! Dispatch me! Antony is a botcher. This Antony in "Antony in Cleopatra"-- At this point, yes-- No. From the beginning of the play, he's a botcher. Every decision he makes is wrong, and she's watching it and watching it. It's like watching a car crash. She just sees it in slow motion. He's this great warrior, and he can't kill himself. Exactly! Ohh!

CATTRALL

Close to death, Antony is carried to see Cleopatra, and in a scene that Shakespeare denied his other great lovers Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra are brought together for a final good-bye. I can... no more. Noblest of men, woo't die? As her lover dies in her arms, Cleopatra's world comes crashing down around her.

REDGRAVE

What Cleopatra becomes-- and Shakespeare, I think, adores Cleopatra, and Antony has died only seconds before, however long you take to think Antony has died. "There's nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon". And there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon. Cleopatra's fainted, and then she comes round, and she's different. The entire world is different is what she realizes. He's gone. He's gone, so everything is different. Ah, women, women! Look! Our lamp is spent.

CATTRALL

With Antony gone, in the tragic final act, the stage is Cleopatra's, and Shakespeare gives her, I think, the most beautiful speech of the play as she describes her dead lover as the hero he tried yet failed to be. "I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony. "O, such another sleep, that I might see "but such another man! "His face was as the heavens, "and therein stuck a sun and moon "which kept their course and lighted the little O, the earth."

PASTER

I think at the very end of the play and when she speaks those amazing words about him, then I think we can say here is where we know she genuinely and truly loves him. His face was as the heavens, and therein stuck a sun and moon which kept their course and lighted the little O, the earth.

DOLABELLA

Most sovereign creature! His legs bestrid the ocean, his reared arm crested the world. If it might please ye-- Think you there was, or might be, such a man as this I dreamed of? Gentle madam, no. You lie.

CATTRALL

Although distraught, Cleopatra won't give up as easily as Antony. It's only when she learns that Octavius intends to strip her of her kingdom and parade her through the streets of Rome as a war trophy that she makes the decision to leave this world with an abiding memory of her as the Great Queen. So in the closing lines, she prepares to commit suicide, wearing all her symbols of royalty. Give me my robe, put on my crown. I have immortal longings in me.

WALTER

There's a certain sort of peace that comes at the end when she's finally made her decision. This is it. And it's not even a decision that has to be made for her anymore. It's been made by the situation. I played it as it was slowly taking over, she was sort of slowing down. I mean, she wasn't falling apart. There was still this effort of going-- Janet kept saying to me "Pretend you're getting into a spaceship and you're going up." Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was this celebration of it because it was on her terms. Me thinks I hear Antony call.

CATTRALL

With everything lost, Cleopatra's only thought is of Antony. Husband, I come! That's when she really marries him. That's when she decides, "Right, together we will be in heaven because here on earth it just"-- Doesn't work. It's a profound moment, and of course she knows that these are her own last moments, and when she says, "Husband, I come," really what she is saying is "Wait for me. I'm almost there with you again. "I'm almost reunited with you again, and I just have to make it happen." Now to that name my courage prove my title. I am fire and air. My other elements I give to baser life. So, have you done? Come then and take the last warmth of my lips. Farewell, kind Charmian. Long farewell. Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall. Come, thou mortal wretch... This iconic scene is how our memory of Cleopatra lives on, the great Egyptian queen, with a poisonous snake at her breast. With thy sharp teeth, this knot intrinsicate of life at once untie. It's a plan for public immortality. O, poor venomous fool, be angry and dispatch. O, couldst thou speak that I might hear thee call great Caesar ass. I think what's really satisfying about playing this scene is that the true character of Cleopatra is there to the very end. Peace, peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, that sucks the nurse asleep? She's had the love of her life taken away, her kingdom, her beloved Egypt, her children, but still she has the strength to decide for herself how she wants to die. This is so wonderful to play, the strength of this woman. It really is inspiring.

ACTRESS AS CHARMIAN

Break! O, break! She's fearless to the end. What should I stay-- Downy windows, close.

SUZMAN

One of the most wonderful things about a great Shakespeare play is the journey that the characters make towards a kind of emotional maturity or revelation at the end of the play. The greatest reason why we keep on doing these damn plays is because we watch somebody flower and open and learn and become something else as the play proceeds. The man is a genius.

CATTRALL

The death of Antony and then of Cleopatra seems to mark the end of an era, but their story as told by history and by Shakespeare has made these real-life lovers live on in our imagination. In the manner of their deaths, they triumph over what they weren't able to survive in the real world. I have a lot of wonderful memories playing Cleopatra. One of them was on closing night, one of the other actors coming up to me and saying, "Well done. When are you going to do it again?" That is the unending challenge of Cleopatra, and I think I will.

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