Word: enobarbus
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...weakness. The two other Triumvirs--Antony and Octavius--enter and sit separated by the table, testing and feeling out each other's strength while often refusing to let their eyes meet. The wary, equal opposition of powers crushing weakness between them is enhanced by the diagonal placing of Enobarbus and two lesser officers on Antony's flank, and of Agrippa and two corresponding officers on Octavius...
...Once in a while we are told that Antony was great; Shakespeare should have shown us--but, since he didn't the actor somehow should, and this Ryan fails to do. Ryan does not 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...
...does not extend to accepting Miss Hepburn as a sensuous femme fatale who ages from 28 to 38. Only once is she amorously convincing, when she gradually moves in toward Antony ("Eternity was in our lips. . .") and lightly caresses his bare arm. But she lacks the "infinite variety" that Enobarbus attributes to her. Whereas Antony is a fixed entity, Cleopatra is never fixed. Pick almost any adjective you like, and you can find support for its applicability somewhere in the script. She is utterly chameleonic in behavior, and nearly as complex as Hamlet. But Miss Hepburn's range...
...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...
Kent Smith is impressively military as Enobarbus; his greatest flaw is a continuous attempt to make the speech sound "realistic," a style which crushes the beautiful verse of such speeches as "The barge she sat in ..." Ralph Crinton as Oetavius is excessively noisy--perhaps more insistent than calculating. Lenore Ulrie's Charmian, complete with New York accent and undulating movements, is the low point of the performance...