Word: octavius
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...meeting of the Triumvirs (II, ii)--the ancient equivalent of our "smoke-filled room." Facing the audience, Lepidus sits in the center behind a wide, stone table and appears to need to draw strength from his furniture to compensate for his own 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...
...tragic "fall" or deterioration. And we do not undergo a catharsis through "pity and fear" by witnessing their death. Nowhere in the play is death regarded as something terrible; we are not sad when Cleopatra takes her life, but rather rejoice in this final triumph she wreaks over Octavius. Both the lovers evince a death-wish; and we can even say that Antony and Cleopatra set up a menage a trois with Death as the third party...
Most of the supporting roles are in admirable hands. John Ragin offers a cleanly acted and crisply spoken Octavius; Morris Carnovsky rounds out resourcefully the sketchily-drawn Lepidus, a V.I.P. who's not V.I.; and Clayton Corzatte is touching as Antony's attendant Eros. Earle Hyman makes deep music of Alexas' lines; and throughout long silences he shows himself the master of what the late Ethel Barrymore called 'perhaps the highest art of an actor--the art of beautiful listening" (he is less effective doubling as the asp-smuggling Clown...