Word: caesares
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Ashland, Ore.: Richard II, The Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, and a sleeper, John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi...
...past decade, Miss Hepburn has played Rosalind, Portia, Beatrice, and Viola--none with great success. Ryan has done Coriolanus professionally and other roles informally. The handwriting on the wall is clear. The fact that a movie star, Marlon Brando, gave us in the film version of Julius Caesar an Antony unlikely to be surpassed is no cause for a general Hollywood stampede to the Bard: Brando is a unique genius, probably the greatest acting talent our country has produced (come to think of it, I'd like to see him tackle Ryan's job). In the title parts of Antony...
...indeed, it would be possible--though I am not proffering this as the best solution, to play the work as essentially a near-Shavian high comedy; and of course Shaw did at least treat the Egyptian queen in similar fashion, though taking her at a much tenderer age, in Caesar and Cleopatra. Shakespeare did not present us here with an exalted love: Cleopatra is a nymphomaniac; and sex is, for Antony, just an animalistic gratification. Neither of the lovers is a noble person who experiences a tragic "fall" or deterioration. And we do not undergo a catharsis through "pity...
...even make anything of Antony's one superb action in the play: the dispatching of Enobarbus' "chests and treasure" after the latter has deserted. I shall never cease to regret that Shakespeare didn't write another play covering Antony's life during the year between the end of Julius Caesar and the start of Antony and Cleopatra; there lay the stuff of a real high tragedy, a tale to compare with the analogous one of Aeneas and Dido...
Enobarbus displays the noble loyalty we associate with Horatio in Hamlet, the Bastard in King John, and the Earl of Kent in King Lear. His demise is the sole truly tragic aspect of this play; but one cannot call Antony a tragedy about Enobarbus as one can call Julius Caesar a tragedy about Brutus. Donald Davis' traversal of Enobarbus' famous Barge narration is not up to par, but his later scenes of repentance and death are powerful acting Rae Allen (Charmian), Will Geer (Agrippa), Claude Woolman (Menas), and Richard Waring (Sooth-sayer) are commendable in smaller parts; but Patrick Hires...