Word: enobarbus
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...undertow of Fortune; Cleopatra viciously dunking the poor schlemiel who swims out with the news of Antony's political marriage to Caesar's sister Octavia; Antony, Caesar, and Pompey carousing drunkenly on the eve of their battle, chucking each other off the raft with merry abandon; a broken, wasted Enobarbus sinking from his skeletal ladder into the shadowy waters, his body clutching at bones as it gently bobs on the surface...
...handed, I am a sous'd gurnet. But even if the play has been heavily cut, many scenes transposed, some themes unexplored, others smashed over your head, the trappings of this production are never less than fascinating: Sellars never lets his audience go. Maybe there's no reason for Enobarbus to make love to a character called Fortune (a fatalistic composite of minor officers, advisors and soothsayers), but then I'm not sure I understand the (flamboyantly) sensual Enobarbus of this production at all (although on his own terms, Topher Dow plays him quite well). And I can't discern...
...problems. If there are more than 40 scenes, then he lets them flow into each other swiftly, with one group of actors finishing a sequence while another is starting a new one elsewhere on the stage. Brook mines all the playwright's caustic, worldly wit. A line from Enobarbus, who tells of seeing Cleopatra "hop 40 paces through the public street," inspires him to make the Queen's court a frolicking, unregal place where games and horseplay abound. With the help of Designer Sally Jacobs' simple set, he reaches boldly for a world that cannot be onstage...
...fare better. As Enobarbus, Patrick Stewart conjures up the Queen's burnished barge, and her beauty that age cannot wither, in the tone of a man who is as besotted with Cleopatra as Antony himself. Jonathan Pryce's Octavius Caesar is fascinating for its subtlety: he is a youthful ruler of sensitive and cunning intelligence. Howard fills the role of Antony, which is something like filling the sails of a galleon. His willful ness, his rages, sarcasm, generosity and reluctant self-knowledge are all here. When Antony's defeats are rushing headlong at him, Howard conveys...
...both plays, William Larsen is capable as the weakest of the triumvirs, Lepidus, and his tippling aboard Pompey's ship is amusing. Lee Richardson's Enobarbus is strangely disengaged from its context, and his voice is not musical enough for what are some of the most gorgeous passages ever penned. Michael Levin's Pompey, Steve Karp's Menas. Joseph Maher's Agrippa, and Joseph Lambie's Eros are among those who need more vocal guidance. Peter Thompson scores points as the once-bitten-talee shy Messenger, and Rosalind Harris is properly sweet as Octavia...